The Stars, Like Dust
by take-everything-and-more
Summary: In the year 3038, humanity is at war among the stars. Commander Paige McCullers leads her team of Assaulter pilots on the front-line. Captain Emily Fields tries to keep her talented and damaged Commander in line, and alive.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Taking a break from "All Is Lost" to mourn Shana and get over how much Paige and Emily's relationship is irritating me at the moment. I figured there was no better way to get psyched about the characters again than by making them badass space commanders!**

**Title from the Isaac Asimov book of the same name.**

* * *

"This is Tiger Leader, calling all Sharks," Paige said, keying on her intercom, "Sound off."

Paige flicked the switch guards up on her grav-engine controls, scanning the instrument panel one last time as she went through her mental pre-flight checklist. Satisfied with what she found, she flipped all eight switches, and sighed into the sound of all engines humming to life and the steady thrum beginning to rumble through her spine. She'd missed that hum through her body- it reminded her she was alive more than her own heartbeat did. She gradually leaned back, her body acting as the ship's throttle, nosing it into a steady float several feet above the grav-runway. She looked down the bay line at her right, all eight of the remaining runways filled with the rest of her squad rising to follow her lead.

"Tiger 2 standing by," Shana's smooth voice came over the intercom. Shana had earned her own team by now, but Paige was loathe to lose her favorite wingman- Paige didn't have enough engines on her Assaulter to count the number of times Shana's speed and ferocity had saved her ass.

"Tiger 3 on standby," Sean sounded like he was barely containing his excitement and Paige knew he'd been feeling cooped up on the AGC-Hollis-all of them had. They were approaching a nearly month long no-fly status as they moved through demilitarized Homeworld space to pick up their new Captain, and tempers had been short with the Sharks confined to barracks duty. Paige had only just managed to gain clearance for the exercise after weeks of nagging Allied Flight Control.

"Hammer Leader, ready to go!" Sydney sounded thrilled and Paige had a momentary pang of concern over promoting a rookie to team leader so quickly. _She has good instincts_, Paige reminded herself. _And an obsession with the vid-training room_, she thought with a smile, remembering all the times she'd come upon the girl rewinding old vids of Paige's missions, twisting the projection in her hands to get every angle on a dogfight.

"Keep your formation tight, Shortcut." She reminded the girl as the rest of Sydney's team sounded off.

"This is Blacktip Leader, ready to fucking go already." Noel growled over the intercom, and she saw his ship inch forward with his frustration.

"We all know you need the head-start Blacktip Leader, but keep it in line." Paige chided, trying to strike the delicate balance between humor and authority needed to handle her gifted, unpredictable, and non-team player of an ace. Giving him his own team had been Paige's attempt at seeing if he could cooperate- recognize other's skills and lead with an eye towards mission success rather than individual success. It had taken a team promotion to break Paige in for command, and she hoped Noel would fall in line too.

"Blacktip 2. Reporting." came Nate's surly check-in. Paige frowned. Nate had been a recent transfer and Paige had a sense that he resented her command. Exactly why, she wasn't sure, but he would either get over it quick, or she would bust him out of the squad entirely.

"Blacktip 3. Uh, present?"

Paige clicked over to a private channel to speak to her rookie- straight out of flight school and scared shitless.

"How you doing, Lucas? Ready to fire up all eight engines this time?"

Lucas laughed shakily, "You know you really only need four in training exercises-"

"You'll be fine, rookie. Stick close to Kahn."

The prospect of staying on Noel's tail was probably more frightening than making use of his ship's eight engines. But scared was alright to start with- scared could be good. She had a feeling he'd find out what happened when you pissed yourself in Zero G, but they had plenty of non-com flight hours coming up and she was confident his initial jitters would pass.

There was a bank of four thruster levers on her right, another four on her left, and a readout of each engine's exact percentage of thrust on the smart glass cockpit, a set-up that had earned the Assaulters the nickname "stick-shift from hell."

Paige cracked her knuckles, loosening them up for the strain of the flight.

"Keep engines at 50 percent heading out, Sharks. Don't want to leave any grav-engine burn on our Head Engineer's sparkling clean docking bay."

She leaned forward slightly, the supporting chassis around her responding to the hardware in her suit, and moving the ship forward with surprising speed, even at minimal power. While the Assaulter's could technically land anywhere, it was always best to take off from a grav-runway- it gave the squadron incredible speed in entering a dogfight when taking off at full power. The Sharks could scramble from their barracks and be out the hangar doors in a minute thirty, pre-flight check and all, another reason Assaulter pilots were so sought after.

Paige waited while the Control Deck cleared their take-off, fidgeting and wiping a smudge off the inside of her cockpit's smart glass. As soon as the grav-runway lit blue and began pushing her ship forward, she snapped all thrusters to half-power and threw her body forward.

She shot out of the hangar bay, flicking the right thruster engines to send her into a spin- at once a joyous expression of finally being able to stretch out into the great expanse of space- the irony of feeling like she could actually _breath_ now that she was outside- and to check the rotation of her cockpit chassis. The spherical smart glass enclosing her spun, but she remained stubbornly "upright," the ship keeping her in complete equilibrium so she could steer.

Paige bit down on the pressure sensitive panel of the comlink between her back teeth, clicking over to another programmed private channel.

"Caleb, pull the readings for the port-aft engine, it's still not evening out with the rest." The S-8 Assaulters were equipped with eight grav-engines, and being able to manipulate each individually was the key to the ship's superior agility. Aside from the difficulty in piloting them, the engines were notoriously finicky to calibrate, and Paige's ship in particular seemed to respond to no one's touch but their Head Engineer's.

"Sure thing, Commander, do you need to scrub the run?"

"No, the Sharks need some space to move. I'll adjust manually for now, but have a look before next drill."

"Heard, Commander."

Paige acknowledged and clicked back over to her squadron frequency.

"A, bring up the Nav HUD," Paige ordered the computer. The Alpha Prime Computer system-or just A as everyone shipboard called her- was linked to the squadron and the AGC - Hollis itself, projecting a fully tracking map sphere of all nearby vessels. She would be able to rotate is as needed while she took the Shark's through their paces.

She watched her squadron move through the hologram for a moment, all of them executing loops and spins, reversals and dives, testing themselves and their machines. She gave the command to fall into formation, watching as eight Assaulters circled back to her position, arraying themselves around their leader. Paige led them through several practice scenarios and basic drills, breaking them off into their separate teams occasionally to watch how her leaders handled their own choreography. Satisfied with their progress, she decided it was time to start the _real _training.

"I think it's time we all had a light tag match." Paige announced.

"_Yessssssssss!_" Sean practically bellowed through her comlink, and there was a chorus of other positive chatter, although she could have sworn she heard a groan that sounded suspiciously like Lucas.

"A, switch all weapons to light markers and run the damage simulation program."

Paige flicked her smart glass over her right eye, checking that the targeting reticule moved as her eye focus did. She slid her boots into the stirrups that would function as her trigger once she yanked down on them and addressed her full squadron before she switched over to Tiger team frequency.

"Team battle, Sharks, watch out for your wingmen and they'll watch out for you."

Shana and Sean looped to form a tight triangle with Paige, Shana keeping low on her right and Sean performing excited spins on her left.

The three Blacktip members made an immediate sweep turn to engage Paige's team, Lucas' ship lagging just behind the formation. Paige was unsurprised at the move- Noel was anxious to be the first to light tag Paige's Assaulter. He'd been trying to get a bet going on when it would happen but so far there had been no takers.

Nate's Assaulter looped under Noel's, neatly taking Kahn's position to challenge Paige and forcing the Blacktip team leader to pursue Shana instead. Paige knew Noel wouldn't be happy about that. She kept her Assaulter skipping side to side even as Nate flew a head on course for her. It was a reckless and aggressive move on his part- they were more likely to tag each other out than anything flying like this.

As soon as Nate was in firing range, Paige cut all power to her rear and starboard thrusters, throwing her body to the right and all thruster power to port side engines. The Assaulter jumped almost completely laterally out of Nate's incoming path, neatly out of the way of the bolts of orange light he was firing. Nate streaked past her Assaulter's near forward standstill, but began correcting into a tight pursuing loop. Paige had continued to press into her lean, adding thrust to her rear port engine to send her Assaulter into a tight rolling loop, bringing her round fast enough to momentarily catch the side of Nate's ship in her sights. Paige focused her targeting reticule over Nate's Assaulter and slammed her boots down, a spray of magenta light splattering all along the side of Nate's ship.

Nate's incapacitated ship drifted away as the rest of Tiger team fell back into formation, Shana and Sean having evaded the rest of the Blacktips. Lucas' ship was drifting aimlessly, a flash of dark purple light from Sean's guns across its starboard side and Noel's yellow gun marks across the back.

"Lucas got in the way of one of Noel's maneuvers and tagged him before I did. I'd be jealous that he stole my kill, but I think I'll buy him a drink for that one." Sean chuckled gleefully over her comlink. Sean was more likely to get the drink thrown back in his face, but Paige thought Noel might deserve a little humiliation from the squadron- if he couldn't be coaxed into communicating with his team, perhaps he could be shamed.

Paige's thoughts on her unit's cohesion were cut short as she watched three ship's heading towards their position on the HUD.

"3 and 8 o'clock Tigers, evasive!" Paige yelled in her comlink, as Sean and Shana's ships barely skated out of the light trail Sydney's team was painting behind them. Sydney's teammates flew through the gap created in the Tiger's formation, effectively splitting them up. Clever teamwork, Paige thought, even as she banked upwards to avoid the light blasts from Sydney's Assaulter behind her.

Sydney's teammates descended on Sean and tagged him in a bright mess of green and blue light before Paige tagged the first in a flyby, then stalled her engines and flipped round to tag the pursuing Assaulter with her magenta bolts. Shana swooped away from Sydney, the rookie hot behind her and sending light blasts into space as Paige's wingmate juked erratically to throw her off. Shana reversed all engines in an attempt to shake her, but after a split second delay Sydney had reversed her own engines to follow. A split second was all Shana needed though, as she reversed her thrusters yet again and looped her Assaulter to face Sydney's ship head on.

"Bye, kid." Shana said, a vivid spray of red appearing across Sydney's cockpit as Shana banked sharply upward, reversing her underside thrusters to avoid a collision. Paige's grin at her wingmate's victory was short-lived, as Noel Kahn's Assaulter cut in from above, practically painting Shana's ship in light, an overkill of gaudy yellow as he screamed past so close he left grav-engine marks over the fresh light.

"Just you and me, Commander. Care to dance?" Noel spoke in her ear.

"Let's see how good your footwork is," Paige replied, sending bolts of magenta after Noel's Assaulter, "I'll lead!"

Noel dodged her fire at the last moment, adding an extra spin at the end, confident as a musician adding a trill to an already complex piece. Kahn flew beautifully- as proud of the lines he cut in an Assaulter as he was of the the lines of his own sharp features.

Noel's Assaulter twisted around to return fire, Paige diving beneath his approach to avoid the blasts. Noel looped in tight behind her, ready to tail and tag her.

"A, you sweet sunbeam, send Kahn a message from me. Tell him his ass is slow."

Paige reversed all thrust on her back engines, toggling bursts to the center and front engines and sending her Assaulter up and over Noel's ship in a loop so tight that it was actually a complete flip, the rest of the ship upside down even as Paige's chassis kept her upright. her fore engines just barely eased behind Noel's aft ones, and if Paige had miscalculated a millimeter this training exercise would have been deadly.

But Assaulter pilots lived and died by millimeters, and Paige never miscalculated.

A bright magenta light tag bloomed across the Assaulter's rear four engines. The ship-board computer recognized the simulated damage and registered the hit as a kill. Noel Kahn's Assaulter floated dead in space. A message icon popped up on his smart glass and A helpfully opened his message.

"You have one message from the Commander. Replaying: Your ass is slow."

* * *

Emily Fields ran her fingers over the box that held the final piece of her uniform. She hadn't looked at the small platinum starburst since it had been presented to her by Captain Fulton in view of the Allied Galactic Fleet Admiral, her entire graduating class, and several dozen holo-vid reporters.

_"I don't understand." Emily had said, standing in Captain Fulton's office before the ceremony._

"You're Valedictorian." Fulton answered, "It's tradition that you be awarded with a command post on a vessel."

"Not a front-line ship. Not a _Cruiser_." Emily replied, unconvinced.

Fulton frowned, steepling her fingers behind her desk.

"You completed your tour of duty as a First Officer with glowing recommendations. Your performance at the Academy has been exemplary- your classmates not only admire you, they _follow_ you. And-" Fulton paused, "your experience at the front as an Assaulter pilot did much to convince certain key individuals of your fitness for the captaincy."

Emily crossed her arms, too anxious about where this conversation was going to remain at attention in front of her mentor.

"I was tagged out on my third mission. Not exactly a stellar career move."

Fulton nodded, "And you survived. Very nearly unheard of."

"And I suppose that's what really convinced _certain key individuals _to give me this captaincy? "

Fulton clasped her hands and leaned forward across her desk, Emily knowing from experience the Captain's body language when she wanted to engage in a 'serious talk.'

"Emily, what happened to you is always going to be a part of who you are. You don't have the luxury of hiding it," Fulton began.

Emily ran her hand up and down her left arm, trying to ward off the tingle of fear she felt in her skin, feeling more exposed in the sleeveless dress uniform than usual.

"I know that isn't fair, I know you didn't make the choice to be under this much scrutiny. But you have a choice now- you can take this Captaincy. You can lead. There's no more courageous decision."

"I'd rather be qualified for the post than be a political statement." Emily sighed.

Fulton chuckled, an edge of resignation in her laugh, "You'll soon find that every decision you make as Captain will be a political one."

The older woman watched her protégé's face fall. Her own face softened.

"But that isn't all they are. The political veneer we have to disguise our decisions in doesn't erase the basis of why we made them. You're a good choice, for many reasons, some of them political, yes, but you are also a good _officer_. You can bring people together, not just because of _what_ you are," Fulton said, pointing to Emily's arm, "but _who_ you are."

Fulton stood, turning to face the window of her office; a view overlooking the rest of the Academy space station, and the shipyards beyond, a dozen Cruiser class ships in varying states of construction floating tethered in the backdrop of endless space.

"We are at war. And the front lines of that war are not always clear- the battles we undertake are as frequently ideological as they they are physical. There are a thousand ways we can lose this war, Emily, even while still technically being victorious. Your promotion to such a high profile position is one more step towards bringing lasting peace. For everyone."

"But the Hollis-" Emily said softly.

"I love that ship." Fulton looked over her shoulder and Emily could see the sadness in her profile, "It is my home, my family. My life's work. I wouldn't entrust it to anyone else for any smaller reason. Or to anyone I didn't believe in more."

_Emily clicked open the clasp on the box, pulling the pin from it's fold in the purple velvet interior. She stood in front of her mirror, flicking dark wavy hair over her shoulder._

The starburst was the insignia of the Allied Galactic Cruiser Hollis, and the platinum- Emily refused to let her fingers shake as she snapped it into the hole in her collar- meant she was it's Captain.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: So excited to post more of this! Thanks for the reading and reviews, guys!**

* * *

Paige unhooked herself from the cockpit chassis, gloved fingers stumbling over the carabiners, legs shaking as she eased her boots out of the firing stirrups. She was always like this after a flight- hands cramping from the constant dance over the thruster levers, body rigid and exhausted from throwing herself into every maneuver, skin slick with sweat under her flightsuit. If she felt like a god in the cockpit of her Assaulter, stumbling out of it reminded her of how flawed she still remained. Just another reason to resent returning to the claustrophobia of the Hollis, she thought with a grimace.

She sighed as she keyed her personnel code into the smart glass cockpit, sending it sliding open and her stumbling out.

"You got it, old timer?" Shana asked, catching her elbow as Paige pitched forward.

"So nice to see young folk looking after their elders," Paige said with a roll of her eyes. Shana smirked and ducked under Paige's arm and they leaned on each other as they moved across the docking bay.

Shana was only a year younger than her, and at 26 Paige hardly felt like an old timer. It was true most Assaulter pilots didn't make it much past 30- tagged out in combat, or retired once their reflexes were too slow to keep up with the ships that carried them. Paige wasn't so afraid of the first option; every Assaulter pilot had made their own uneasy pact with death and it manifested in a hundred different ways. It was the drunken carousing and brawls in the Shark cantina, the obsessive compulsive studying and simulation runs, the relief found in another's body, and Paige's own brand of isolationism; the arm's length intimacy, the burnt bridges when people got too close. Paige had found her own way to deal with death, but the idea that she could fizzle out before she was tagged out; that every reaction would take half a beat longer, every turn would grow a little less sharp, her eyes tracking slower and her hands hesitating, terrified her. Her body already felt like a betrayal- she couldn't live in it once it began the sure and incremental process of shutting down.

The two pilots took their time crossing the hangar and by now the rest of Paige's squadron had exited their ships, most seemed exhausted and a few looking even more wiped out than Paige felt. Sydney was leaning against her Assaulter on shaky legs, laughing breathlessly with her team and modeling with her hands the maneuvers her ship and Shana's had undergone during the light fight. Sean was staring forlornly at his Assaulter, smart glass flicked down over his eye so he could still see the blue and green light trail across his ship, studying where he'd been hit during the exercise so he could adjust his flying in the future. Noel and Nate were glaring daggers at each other, and Lucas was lying on the hangar floor, Paige recognizing from experience that the relative cool of the metal was heaven for an overheated pilot in a soaked flightsuit.

It hadn't been been a bad exercise, considering the had been grounded so long. The squadron had a tendency to be reckless after being cooped up, and the light tag match had run shorter because of it. A few of her pilots would need a bit of gentle reminding that they were not invincible- an Assaulter was not a forgiving machine.

Their ships were equipped with only the most basic shielding- enough to withstand the heat of entering a heavy atmosphere or weathering a shower of micro-meteors, but for the most part Assaulters were one shot, one kill vehicles. Shields were heavy, and they would have diminished the ship's greatest assets- speed and agility.

Paige sighed and leaned further into Shana. She missed their old traditions after making it back from a flight, their celebrations not of life, but simply of not being dead yet- the scalding shared shower, the press of each other against cool tile, the tumble into bed still wet, all water and steam and touch. It was in her exhausted and weak moments that Paige regretted ending things. When Fulton had promoted her to Commander of the squadron Paige had distanced herself from Shana, believing that she would need all her faculties unentangled in order to lead her Sharks.

Caleb was waiting for them at the hangar bay doors. She could see a vid of their flight maneuvers playing across the lense of his smart glass, and he was already taking swift notes on a sheet of holo-paper.

"How was the flight, Commander?" Caleb asked, snapping his smart glass up and flicking the holo-paper over to an image of Paige's Assaulter.

"Fine, fine," Paige replied, "But I've had an idea."

Caleb all but groaned. He was used to Paige coming up with "ideas" and he knew how many all night shifts he'd have to take to pull them off. Paige ignored her Head Engineer's dramatics.

"I think if you could reroute the power from navigation, sensors, and the computer, you could get a bit more temporary power behind the engines."

Caleb shook his head, "The core would burn too hot. You'd incinerate yourself."

Paige tapped the image of her Assaulter on the holo-paper and drew her fingers upward, pulling out a 3D model of her ship. She rotated the ship upside down and highlighted the area behind her cockpit, where the ship's power core resided.

"Not if you installed foils to vent it here and here," She said, pointing to the screen, "And not if you rigged it to send the rest of the excess to the aft engines."

"I swear, I don't understand how Assaulter pilots always want _more _speed." Caleb said, shaking his head.

"Could you do it?"

Caleb rotated the image, appraising the work that would need to be done and rubbing his thin goatee with a free hand.

"You'd be talking about a controlled burst of speed." He began, eyes narrowing in thought, "Maybe ten seconds worth is all. And then you'd overheat and trigger the automatic core shut-down. Just communications and life support. You'd be dead in space until the core restarted."

"How long?" Paige asked.

"Thirty seconds."

Paige met the Head Engineer's eyes, both of them knowing that thirty seconds adrift was a death sentence. Paige broke the stare and continued towards the canteen, calling over her shoulder.

"Have it ready by next drill."

* * *

Emily gave a soft knock on the door frame, trying to give the room's occupant at least the illusion of privacy. Cadet quarters at the Academy weren't equipped with doors. "Openness and transparency in all things," or some such jingoistic nonsense. Emily wouldn't be missing that. She _would_ miss this girl.

Spencer Hastings looked up from shoving the fourth volume in an eight book set she owned on navigating around phenomena caused by quasars into her duffel. She glanced at Emily long enough to give her a curt nod before she bent back to to the task of overloading her bag.

"Hey Spencer." Emily tried, stepping slowly into the room.

"Captain." Came Spencer's short reply as she stood, swinging her bag over her shoulder.

Emily cringed at her friend's anger, at her dismissal. Graduating, the valedictorian status, the captainship- it all should have been Spencer's, and Emily knew how hard the other girl took disappointment.

"Are you leaving?" Emily asked.

"I received my posting as First Officer. I'm to report to the Rosewood by tomorrow."

Emily wasn't familiar with the ship, "Where is she stationed?"

"Earth Prime. Supposedly a diplomatic ship." Spencer scoffed.

Emily struggled to keep the shock off her face, though she knew Spencer would see through it. A "diplomatic" ship off a Homeworld planet was unofficial code for a glorified ferry transporting rich Homeworlder dignitaries to Mars or some other terraformed colony for weekend golf trips and drinking binges.

Emily felt sick. Spencer should be on a front-line ship. She should be on a command track for Fleet Admiral, not stuck dealing with belligerent politicians who didn't understand that fetching them a drink wasn't within a First Officer's range of duties.

Spencer shifted her bag, trying to distribute the weight more evenly across her shoulders. Emily knew she must be carrying half her weight just in textbooks- she always did have an obsession with analog forms of information.

"It's not forever Spencer." Emily began, "Just a year as First Officer and then you'll graduate. You won't have any trouble being top of your class and then you'll get a command position-"

"They aren't going to suddenly forget that I'm crazy, Emily!" Spencer snapped.

"I'm sorry." Emily said, "that was stupid of me."

They had both lost so much.

It had been a routine training exercise- a simulated response to a planet bound distress signal. Five cadets had been sent on the mission. Spencer's fiance had been one of them. When the ship experienced engine failure and radioed for help, the transmission had cut out midway through giving their coordinates. Toby and the rest of the crew weren't heard from again.

Long after officials at the Academy had declared them MIA, Spencer had scoured SOS signals for months. She'd gone through thousands of hours of ship's logs looking for any mention of a sighting, she'd listened to the last transmission from Toby's ship over and over again, trying to find some hint of what had gone wrong, how a ship and five people could just disappear, fade into the blackness of space like they had never existed. Finally she'd withdrawn from the Academy entirely, insisting that she had to go to the system the ship had disappeared in, conduct a search herself. After three months her family had finally sent someone to recover their daughter, whether she wanted to come or not. She'd spent another three months at the Radley Institution, supposedly being treated for "exhaustion" before her parents smoothed the way for their daughter to re-enroll at the Academy, adamant that she finish her training.

By then Spencer was almost a year behind her other classmates. She'd had to repeat the year's classwork amidst snickers and rumors from the rest of the cadets, alternately handled with scorn or over-care from her instructors. Spencer became something of a legend at the Academy- the brightest star the school had seen in years had lost track of herself, lost track of her handle on sanity and duty, and fallen as only the passionately brilliant can- completely and spectacularly. It was no surprise that she had been given such a disappointing position as her final qualification before graduating, but it must have still hurt her deeply. It must have hurt her still more to see Emily walk away with everything Spencer had ever wanted.

"I'm not angry at you, Emily." Spencer sighed, "I'm angry at myself. I did this."

"Spence, it wasn't your fault."

"That's worse." Spencer laughed, holding herself like even she could feel her sharp edges, "That would mean I couldn't stop it happening again."

Emily realized with a pang that what she had taken for anger was really fear. She could see now that Spencer was terrified. Terrified of the prospect that, even recovered, she would always feel like she was just one misstep away from tumbling over the precipice of losing herself again. Spencer would always struggle with the fatigue of going through every day wondering if the next would be the one where she lost the things she valued most about herself- her rationality, her focus, her self-reliance, the force that kept her always moving forward.

Spencer shook her head, rousing herself from her mood, "I have to go."

Emily wanted desperately to hug her friend, but ever since she'd returned from Radley Spencer had looked as though she conducted her own personal electrical field, like any touch might singe them both.

"We'll see each other again." Emily assured her friend with conviction.

Spencer laughed again, avoiding Emily's eyes, "Sure Em. It's a pretty small universe, isn't it?"

* * *

The Sharks were relaxing after their debriefing, scattered about the cramped canteen situated between the engine room and their sleeping quarters. The Shark's canteen functioned as their unofficial mess hall- the squadron was an insular group, and Paige didn't like the crowd of the common mess either. The topic of conversation had mostly focused on accounts of the light fight and arguments over correct maneuvers, but as the evening wore on it switched to speculation about their new Captain.

Sydney leaned on her elbows across the table, eyes bright with her perpetual inquisitiveness.

"What's all the secrecy about, do you think? Why haven't we heard anything about the new Captain?"

Paige shrugged- she was putting off thinking about their new Captain as much as possible, stubbornly clinging to the fantasy that Fulton would realize she couldn't live without the Hollis and come back to them. Before she could express her disinterest, Lucas slid onto the bench across from Paige, looking dazed.

"She's Augmented." He said.

Paige froze, feeling something curiously similar to the sensation of floating dead in space. Lucas had spoken so quietly that most of the Sharks had missed what he said, but Noel had heard. He punched Sean in the arm, silencing his overzealous storytelling about the time he'd contracted parasites on Centauri V.

"Wait, what?" Noel growled.

"I have a friend at the Academy. They weren't supposed to holo it- the press isn't even releasing it until tomorrow-"

He had the rest of the Shark's full attention now, and they crowded around the table.

Paige managed to find her voice, gritting out, "Lucas, what the hell are you saying?"

"You can see it in the vid. Her arm- her whole left side, maybe." Lucas pulled up his sleeve, trying to get to his smart watch.

Noel reached across Sydney to grab Lucas' arm, pulled off his watch and tossed it into the center of the table. Paige decided there would be time to reprimand Noel later, and reached out to tap the screen.

A holo materialized above the center of the table. It had the ghostly, transparent look of a low quality recording, the kind that allowed only the most basic interaction.

She could tell it was a graduation ceremony- Paige recognized the Academy insignia, and the rows of shifting young officers in stiff uniforms gave it away. Some class of future high-ups who warranted years of training on top of their field duty before they were ever deemed fit to serve. Paige had never been given such time-intensive training for her command; it had never been deemed a "worthwhile investment." Assaulter pilots simply didn't have the years for it.

The speaker was introducing Fulton, listing off the Captain's illustrious accomplishments over her nearly forty years of service in the Allied Galactic Fleet. Captain Fulton took the stage amidst polite applause, Paige sneering at the underwhelming response- these officers would never know how impressive their Captain had been, how she had held the AGC - Hollis together with determination, loyalty, and unerring dedication. Paige listened closely as Captain Fulton heaped praise upon her choice of successor, speaking of her relationship with the young officer, how she had mentored her and watched her grow into the accomplished woman she was today. Beneath her anxiety Paige felt the sting of jealousy- Fulton was _their _Captain. She had seen something in Paige that no one else had and personally groomed her for commanding the Sharks. Apparently Fulton had plenty of other proteges that meant just as much to her, Paige thought with a frown.

The whole squadron leaned in as Fulton called their new Captain on-stage. _Emily Fields, _Paige turned the name over in her mind as she studied the girl's profile through the fuzzy holo-vid. She took in the long wavy hair, the dark skin, the stiffness of her posture, the determined way she kept her head up in front of the crowd. She watched as Fulton pinned the platinum starburst to her collar.

Paige felt herself gasp with the rest of her squadron when the girl turned towards the audience, her left arm coming into view. Even with the poor holo quality Paige could see the familiar bright blue lines and hexagons of Augmentation all along her skin, her whole arm having been rebuilt with the symbiotic organic-machine material.

Paige felt her throat close up. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears, the pressure of it against her ribcage, every vein and artery flowing with it's jittery staccato of fear.

"She's a fucking _Aug_!" Noel exploded, slamming his hands on the table and shoving himself out of his seat.

A look of revulsion passed across Nate's face, swiftly replaced by an impassive mask as he rewound the holo, freezing and zooming in on a frame of their future Captain as she turned to face the graduates, her left arm fully visible. Sydney leaned so close her nose almost touch the holo, trying to get a better look.

Sean shivered, "What if she.._.turns_, or something, you know? The Technorganics are half-machine, and machines are just programming. Maybe it's dormant now, but what if it turns on?"

Lucas nodded, "Like a sleeper agent."

"Has that happened before?" Sydney asked, eyes wide.

"No, it hasn't!" Paige snarled, "It's just bullshit Homeworlder propaganda."

Shana shook her head, "Even if you're right, Paige- even if there's nothing to those rumors at all and she turns out to be the best Captain we've ever had- how happy do you think the other crew's on the front line are going to be? We're at war with the Technorganics-"

"She's not a Technorganic! She's just Augmented!" Paige argued.

"Same thing," Nate growled.

"How many people on the front-line are going to think like that, though?" Shana continued, "How quickly are they going to respond to a distress call if we need them? How well do you think they're going to execute orders that involve maneuvers with us? How often do you think an allied pilot will hesitate- just for a fraction of a second too long- to take the shot that could save your life?"

Paige frowned as her squadron shifted uncomfortably, trading concerned looks.

"Whoever she is, however good she might be, whatever _statement _they're trying to make with her," Shana stabbed a finger at the figure of Emily in the holo-vid, "she's endangering us all."

* * *

Emily took a last look at her quarters at the Academy, eyes scanning for the hundredth time to see if she'd missed anything, knowing she hadn't. Her bags had already been sent to the Hollis and now the spartan room looked as desolate as it had the first day she'd come to the Academy. It had suited it's occupant's mood then- the young pilot devastated by the loss of her career and unsure of her standing at the beginning of this new one. A cough behind her jolted her out of her revery and she spun around.

"First Officer Ben Coogan, of the AGC - Hollis." The dark haired and dark eyed young man behind her said.

"Mr. Coogan, I'm pleased to meet you. I had expected to see you on the Hollis." Emily held out her hand, flustered at the sudden introduction but determined to take it in stride and make a good impression on her First Officer.

Coogan hesitated a moment to take her hand, studying it curiously, and Emily realized with a start what he was thinking.

"It was my left hand, Mr. Coogan. And I can assure you it isn't catching." Emily was used to the attention given to her arm, prepared with all the right words to disarm the frequent fear and curiosity she encountered.

Coogan laughed, taking her hand and shaking it with unnecessary strength, "I'll keep that in mind, Emily. I'm sorry to surprise you, I thought you'd like a personal tour of the ship."

She bristled at the use of her first name, uncomfortable that he already felt familiar enough with her to drop even the most basic honorifics. She shook it off as her being paranoid- every ship had it's own personality, perhaps the crew of the Hollis was just informal.

"Thank you Mr. Coogan," She said, stressing his last name, "I would appreciate it."

Coogan paused, taking a step closer to Emily and speaking conspiratorially, "I just want you to know that even if the rest of the crew is against your captaincy based on your..._condition_...I'm with you one hundred percent." He put a hand on her arm, "I have no problem with Augs. Actually, my last two girlfriends had put in a few upgrades," he finished with a wink.

Emily recoiled from his hand, "My Augmentation wasn't for cosmetic reasons. I was a _pilot. _a _soldier._ I still am."

"Of course," Ben said, raising his hands to ward off her words, "All I'm saying is you won't get any push-back from me."

Emily nodded, trying to ignore the warning bells that were going off at the back of her mind, allowing Coogan to lead the way towards the hangar. As they walked he repeatedly closed the distance between them, Emily inwardly cringing every time his arm brushed against hers. She focused her eyes out the long picture windows they were passing by, following the curve of the station through space, it's stark lines against the gentle emptiness of black. She reminded herself that these would be her last looks of the Academy for some time- she'd would be saying goodbye to the station she had spent four years getting to know. She couldn't manage to muster an appropriate sense of sadness for her departure- she had a certain affection for the old space station, and an appreciation for what she'd learned, but she would not miss it.

"There will have to be some personnel changes," Coogan was saying, "Fulton had a long career but she tended to keep officers around out of loyalty rather than with an eye towards performance. I tried to get her to see my point of view, but she was too set in her ways."

Emily raised an eyebrow, "Captain Fulton was one of the most decorated officers in the fleet. She must have been doing something right."

Coogan shrugged, "To be honest, she really hadn't been doing much _leading _in her last few years. She'd mostly let everything fall to me."

Emily thought of Captain Fulton's intense management of her own career and found that statement highly unlikely.

"I'm sure you'll be happy to have some of the pressure off you then." she said instead.

They stepped onto the elevator and Coogan grinned as he selected the hangar floor, something predatory in the flash of his teeth. Emily felt a momentary pang of alarm that they were alone on the elevator.

"I'll think you'll find me more than equal to the job," he said, "I'll be happy to take care of all the necessary changes while you get your feet under you."

Emily shook her head, mouth set in a firm line, "That won't be necessary, Mr. Coogan. I will be handling all personnel changes."

"With all due respect, Captain," Coogan said, his tone conveying anything but respect, "You're an outsider coming onto this ship. You don't have any idea of the politics going on aboard the Hollis- the kinds of cracks it has. Whatever training you think you have is nothing compared to the experience of actually being out there."

"I understand your reservations, officer, and will welcome your input, but I am confident in my ability to read the situation and make judgments on my own." Emily replied, struggling to keep the anger out of her voice.

"And what kind of judgment does a puppet have? A political stunt dressed up as a Captain?" Coogan sneered.

"First Officer Coogan," Emily seethed, "the next time you disrespect my command, I will have you relieved of yours."

Something in Ben's face changed, all the affability and charm drained out of it and Emily caught a glimpse of who he really was in the rage and disdain that showed as he spoke, "I don't know who you think you are, coming in here and thinking you can do whatever you like. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, to _help _you. They won't follow you. They know you'll get them _killed_. They will eat you alive."

Coogan had been closing the distance between them in the elevator, and now he spoke in her ear.

"I'm warning you officer, step _back._" Emily growled.

Ben grabbed her left arm, pulling her to look at him.

"You _need _me." he hissed.

Coogan's head snapped back as she slammed her fist into the bridge of his nose, grabbing his arm as he recoiled, and spinning him around. She yanked his arm behind his back until she could feel the muscles of his shoulder protesting, shoving him against the far wall of the elevator.

"The last thing I _need_ is a predator around," she hissed at him.

Emily released his arm and took a step back as his hand went up to the staunch the blood from his nose.

"I accept your resignation Mr. Coogan. I will request a shuttle be made ready for you in ten minutes. I trust you will have a very promising career elsewhere."

The elevator door finally opened and Emily spun on her heel and walked away, leaving a sputtering Ben Coogan in her wake.

* * *

The canteen had finally quieted down, the rest of the squadron exhausting themselves replaying the vid and arguing among themselves. Now it was just Sean slumped against a wall in the corner, snoring, and Shana and Paige hunched over the bar.

Paige frowned, swirling what was left of her scotch, "If you're worried about the new captain, you could request a transfer. Any Cruiser this side of the galaxy would be clamouring to pick up a Commander out of the Shark squadron."

Shana rolled her eyes and finished her drink.

"You're ass would get tagged in five minutes without me."

Shana stood, sliding her glass down the bar and stretching. She put out a hand to push Paige's hair behind her ear, a familiar gesture to Paige from the old days when they were together, but stopped herself, turned it into a pat on the shoulder instead.

"Get some rest, Commander. Don't want the new Captain to see you with a hangover."

Shana sidled away from the bar, off to her bunk or someone else's and Paige let out the breath she'd been holding since suggesting Shana transfer. The truth was that Paige desperately didn't want Shana to leave the squadron, but her guilt at her wingman's obvious talent- and perhaps guilt over her own inability to give Shana _more _elsewhere- made her bring up the subject often. She wanted the best for Shana- she had more than earned it, but her wingman didn't act eager to leave. She seemed oddly content at Paige's side for such a competitive pilot. It was a quiet kind of loyalty, and it reassured Paige of her command on days when she questioned her abilities, her diplomacy, even her desire for the position in the first place.

Paige rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand, dreading the return to her bed with nothing but a heavy heart and a buzzing brain for company. Tomorrow they would all meet their new Captain, and everything would change.

* * *

Emily ran through the hangar, dodging around the activity of ship's loading, in too much of a hurry to acknowledge the hasty salutes thrown her way as her Captain's uniform was recognized.

The shuttle was scheduled to leave in four minutes, and Spencer was nothing if not punctual.

"Spencer!" Emily called, as soon as she caught sight of the girl's dark hair and slight form, just stepping onto the ramp to her shuttle.

Spencer spun around, confusion turning to concern as she watched Emily barrel through the hangar towards her.

"Emily, what's wrong? What happened?" Spencer asked, dropping her duffel and coming to meet Emily halfway.

"I need a First Officer," Emily said, panting and resisting the urge to bend over to catch her breath.

Spencer raised an eyebrow, "What happened to the one you had?"

"I fired him," Emily said, trying to look contrite but unable to hold back just the hint of a smile twitching at her mouth.

"Jesus, Em," Spencer sighed, shaking her head, "You really know how to begin a command."

"I know- dealing with hostile officers isn't really my strong suit. _You _don't take shit from anyone, though." Emily hedged.

"Too bad I already have a posting," Spencer said, crossing her arms, nerves and suspicion coming into her face.

"I know." Emily began, rifling through a stack of papers on the clip-board she was carrying, "Front-line ships get first priority in choosing personnel. I can have you transferred right now." Emily finished, handing Spencer a holo-paper with her ship assignment on it.

Spencer stared at the paper in her hands, eyes scanning the information, fingers gripping the edges just a little too tight.

The moment she had finished arranging a shuttle for Ben Coogan, Emily had realized the only way she could face her Captaincy was with Spencer at her side. Emily knew she was a good leader- she trusted herself, but she didn't have Spencer's unwavering practicality, her temperament to expect the worst and plan for it, the sternness with which she held herself and inspired solemnity in those around her. She and Spencer were born leaders, but together they could accomplish what either of them would have found impossible on their own- they could lead the Hollis.

"All you have to do is agree." Emily said softly.

When Spencer looked up her eyes were flashing with anger.

"I don't need your pity, Emily."

"And I'm not giving it to you." Emily replied, running a hand through her hair, "I need your help, Spencer. I need _you_."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Well tonight's episode was a pretty disappointing one for Paily shippers, wasn't it? Have some space Paily instead. Thank you for the kind reviews- it is pretty great to read them.**

* * *

Paige's eyes snapped open, heart still pounding, eyes still tracking wildly with the aftereffects of the nightmare. There was nothing for her to fight, no purchase for her eyes on the brushed metal of the ceiling six inches from her nose. Paige let out a breath, let her eyes close again, tried to feel held by the closeness of the ship, rather than choked by its confines. She could be sleeping in her quarters, but the extra space to pace made it worse somehow- the bed too large, the corners too regular, the window that looked out onto the stars and space that she _could not reach_. She slept in the on-duty squadron bunks most nights, a tight row of stacked beds just above the hangar, a moment away from an emergency alarm and the controls of her ship. It was not exactly better, but it was closer to what she desired. Paige's body only truly felt at peace in her Assaulter- comforted in the grip of the machine that surrounded her, but an infinity of space to hurtle through.

Paige waited until she could feel her breathing steady, her heart slowing until she couldn't feel its irritating insistence in her chest. Once her body stilled, she rolled off the mattress, catching the bar of the bunk as she did. She hung there a moment suspended, feeling the stretch of her arms and spine, the warming of her muscles. She pulled herself up, forced her chin over the bar and dropped to a hang again. After the sixth repetition, she released, hitting the floor in a crouch, the boots she'd forgotten to take off last night making a soft clang against the metal.

It was Hammer Team's week on duty and they were curled in various bunks, Sydney groaning and rolling over at the noise Paige made. Paige ignored them, stretching her legs and jumping to get her blood flowing. She popped open her footlocker to retrieve fresh workout clothes- pulled on the comfort of worn gray sweatpants and a tanktop.

She kicked Sydney's bunk on her way out, the other girl shooting up with a yelp, narrowly avoiding slamming her forehead into the bunk above.

"Up and at 'em, Shortcut. Engines to check and maintenance reports to fill out," Paige called over her shoulder as she jogged out of the barracks, nodding to engine techs who dodged out of her way, sloshing their first of many cups of coffee.

Paige kept up her pace through the spider-webbing corridors, feet confident of their path through the maze. She stopped briefly just outside an open double door, scuffed sign reading Engine Control Room, and ducked her head in. Caleb was in his chair, head lolling over the back, mouth open in a quiet snore. Paige crouched and grabbed one of the many discarded single-use coffee cups littering the floor and lobbed it at Caleb's head, grinning when the Head Engineer lunged forward in his chair, scattering a handful of holo-papers in his lap. His brown eyes blinked at the dim light cast by the several dozen monitors in the room. When those eyes finally found hers, he slumped back in his chair, rubbing his face and yawning.

"Asshole," he said.

"How's my upgrade coming?" Paige inquired, still grinning.

"Fucking fine." Caleb groused, trying to get his papers back in a semblance of order, "if I had any time for it, that is. Do you realize how much backed up paperwork I have to get in order for a new Captain? _Fulton _never gave a shit about progress reports and triplicates."

"If you're lucky she'll never visit you in this rat hole," Paige said.

Caleb nodded, "We can only hope. I'm not much of one for entertaining. In fact, I'm not even sure I have another _chair _down here." Caleb swivelled his own around, as if just by looking for it another would suddenly materialize.

"Just fix the ship," Paige said, "or I'll kick your ass."

Caleb rolled his eyes, "Jock."

"Nerd," Paige called over her shoulder as she resumed her jog. Her stride loosened and her shoulders went down as she continued her trek, the conversation with Caleb doing more than the physical exertion to dispel the mood left over from her nightmare. Her relationship with Caleb was one of the few that hadn't changed since her promotion. The intimacy with Shana, the easy joking brotherhood with the Sharks, her responsibilities as an officer- everything had needed to change once she had become Commander. The pressure made her feel coiled and tense all the time- the comradery with Caleb a small but integral release valve.

She made it to the bank of elevators, hopping in place to keep her heart rate up while she waited for one to arrive.

"Rec floor, A" she said, directing the computer to take her up several levels to the floor reserved for training and recreation activities. The computer complied with a soft ping, the door sliding closed and the elevator accelerating with a whoosh.

Before it could make it to her destination, Paige's elevator made a stop on the general personnel quarters level, the door sliding open to reveal Chief Medical Advisor, Ezra Fitz. Ezra was flipping through readings on a holo-paper, dark eyes too engrossed in what he was doing to notice Paige as he stepped onto the elevator.

"Med Lab, please A," he said, his voice soft. Paige often thought Fitz's voice was a little too polished, a little too cultured, a little too _civilian _for the Hollis. Even as his otherness made her uneasy, she was grateful to have a non-officer as head of medical on board- they had to deal with enough Allied Galactic red tape without it getting in the way of patient care. Grateful or not, the doctor was the last person Paige wanted to see, and she shrank against the back wall, hoping he would be too occupied with whatever he was studying to notice her.

Ezra pulled up a holo of a shattered ribcage, rotated and rearranged bone fragments with his finger before sighing and snapping the holo-paper blank, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes.

"Oh. Paige!" he exclaimed, finally noticing he was not alone.

Paige sighed.

"Commander, I mean." Ezra chuckled nervously, taking her look of dark annoyance for irritation at his informality.

"Doctor Fitz." She said, about to push past him to escape when the door closed with a ping. Paige sighed again in disgust.

"Actually, Commander," Ezra began, voice earnest, "I have been meaning to speak with you. With a new Captain onboard I want to make sure all personnel have up to date medical clearance. I was looking through my records and-" Ezra swiped his holo-paper on again, pulled up her file with a few taps, "it looks like you haven't actually had an exam since you came aboard."

Paige glowered in silence.

Ezra rubbed the back of his neck, "I'm not sure how it happened, actually- it's a bit of an oversight on my part. It's just so many people to keep track of on the Hollis, and without a clerical assistant-"

Paige cut him off, "I'm sure you must have a lot to do with the new Captain coming. I wouldn't want to waste your time. I can wait for things to settle down before stopping by medical."

"Actually, you're one of the few people left to check off my list, and if you aren't on duty right now," Ezra began, and Paige cursed her workout gear, "we could get it out of the way right now." Ezra finished with a bright, ingratiating smile, and Paige felt her own frown deepen.

"Medical Laboratory," A's soft tone announced as the door pinged open.

Ezra stepped into the doorway, pausing and looking back at the Commander. Paige opened her mouth to make an excuse before she realized with frustration that Fitz wouldn't be letting the elevator door close until she got off with him. She stalked out of the elevator, Ezra hurrying after her.

"Tags, please?" Ezra asked once they'd made it to the lab, all pristine white cots and a full wall of holo monitors, a self-contained trauma surgery cube taking up space in the center.

Paige couldn't help but feel the dogtags were a bit superfluous. If an Assaulter pilot were tagged out, they were almost certainly incinerated- lost, dogtags and all. She liked the weight of them against her sternum though, the slide against her collarbone, the jangle against her skin when she ran.

She pulled the tags from under the collar of her tanktop and Ezra scanned them, pulling up Paige's previous medical records, ready to update them as necessary. Ezra gestured towards the scanner, and Paige's heart sank as she stepped onto the platform. The computer let out a soft hum as it completed the scan, a holo of her body coming up to overlay her own, a list of vital signs scrolling to the side.

"Your heart rate is pretty elevated." Ezra said, eyebrows going up.

"I was working out."

Ezra gave her a quizzical once over, taking in her fresh clothes and face. He grinned disarmingly.

"It's perfectly okay to have a bit of 'white coat syndrome,'" he said in a reassuring tone.

Paige rolled her eyes, deciding to let that one pass.

The holo shifted to her circulatory system, veins and arteries branching out from her chest like a root system of stubborn weeds. Paige's reluctant eyes dragged to the image of her heart, pulsing like an armed mine. The pounding in her temples returned, as the migraine that had been threatening since morning descended on her.

Ezra barely glanced at the holo, flipping through a few more layers instead, absorbing a view of her bones, nerves, and musculature. Ezra paused on the last one.

"Make sure you're getting enough calories- it looks like your body has nothing to burn through but muscle mass. You might want to rethink that exercise regiment."

Paige blinked, tried to focus.

"Can't. Have to keep up with my Assaulter." Paige finally managed as she shook her head.

Ezra frowned.

"Just make sure you're taking in as much as you're burning off," He cautioned.

"Are we all done, here?" Paige asked, exhausted with the spent adrenaline of fear.

Ezra studied her readouts.

"Ah, yes Commander," came his distracted reply.

Paige sighed in relief and hopped off the scanner, holo fading out as she headed for the door.

"Oh, and Commander-"

Paige's head dropped and she gritted her teeth.

"Yes?" She said, as she turned to face him.

Ezra met her eyes, gaze steady and ever earnest.

"I won't say anything about it," he said.

Paige opened her mouth before she realized she had no idea what to say. She snapped it closed, turned on her heel, and left the office.

* * *

Emily fought the urge to lean forward and crane her neck around the pilot's seat, overeager to get her first look at the Hollis. She'd seen holos of the ship of course, and she'd stared at the platinum model on Fulton's desk during particularly long monologues from her mentor, but no facsimile of a ship could compete with the actual sight of a Cruiser- the curves of steel and glass, the blue aura of it's engine burn, the lines it's grace cut through space- as though space truly could be cut apart.

When she'd flown an Assaulter, Emily had always been very aware of her size- the smallness of the space she took up, the fearful insignificance, how little the vacuum would notice if her tiny ship disappeared. The pressure to _make _someone notice you, to _force _a difference through skill or recklessness was oppressive, and Emily had only just begun to resolve her feelings about it when her ship was tagged. In some ways it was a relief, despite the pain she had been in and the uncertainty she had experienced. She hadn't felt the joy of flying for a long time.

A Cruiser was an entirely different beast. Everyone onboard was just a part of the whole, but the whole was so much more- the whole was the ship, and the ship was beautiful. Emily wanted to be a part of that.

The new Captain sighed and leaned back in her seat, forcing her body to be patient.

Spencer was completely ignoring the view, flicking through schematics of the Hollis, getting to know the ship from the outside in, instead. It was just the Hollis' new Captain and First Officer aboard the shuttle with the pilot, and Spencer was taking the half hour trip as an opportunity to cram as much information about the ship into her head as she could. Emily knew Spencer hated to be underprepared- she could already see the glint of study mania in her friend's eyes as they tracked across information. As the relevant parts of the ship were highlighted, a sub holo of service personnel opened that Spencer would occasionally scan through somewhat dismissively. Spencer was more interested in numbers, and manifests, and percentages, but these were the files Emily had spent the most time acquainting herself with, and she caught sight of a few familiar faces as Spencer speed-read.

There was Caleb Rivers, the brilliant and unorthodox civilian Head Engineer, with an entire folder full of minor infractions and misconduct charges. Emily had a feeling there would have been more serious consequences had Rivers not proved himself indispensable. There was a year long blank space on his record, a black hole that- with some digging- Emily had discovered was from being tapped by the Homeworld Intelligence and Defense Coalition to become an information systems specialist. Rivers had either managed to disentangle himself from the shadow organization- a feat that would have impressed Emily without knowing anything else about him- or been drummed out. A discharge from the HIDC should have been a career death sentence, but Fulton had taken him onboard the Hollis and under her wing. While she was happy to have such a clever and resourceful Engineer, Emily was concerned about the need to police Rivers' activities. She couldn't afford anything less than a perfect record of conduct in her first months leading the Hollis. While her fellow cadets had dismissed her as simply a stickler for rules, Emily just thought of herself as cautious. She liked to exhaust all reasonable avenues before resorting to a riskier path, but once committed to a course she would see it through, no matter how messy it got. The Coogan situation had proven that.

Mona Vanderwaal was the next name to scroll past, looking immaculate in her personnel holo with a quirk in her eyebrow and a slight smirk hidden in the corner of her mouth. She looked as though she could see you observing her and was mildly amused by the prospect. Vanderwaal was one of the few names Emily was already familiar with prior to her posting on the Hollis. Vanderwaal Industries was a titan in the field of weapon and medical R&D. The irony of their dual focus was seemingly not lost on the company, whose unofficial motto was "to heal the hurts that we made first." Emily found their approach tactless and their morals questionable, but couldn't see using her judgment of the company as a basis to inform her opinion of Mona. While she was sure the Vanderwaal woman still had a sizeable stock interest in the company, she had left behind a controlling influence in it to join the Academy, graduating in half the time that most officers did. She had actually _requested _a station on the Hollis- a rather bold move, Emily felt- but after meeting with Vanderwaal, Fulton had granted her approval. She now functioned as the ship's combined Science and Munitions Officer; a massive workload that Emily was interested to see how Vanderwaal managed to balance.

The next name to flash past was something of an enigma to Emily. All blonde hair and glamorous smile, Hanna Marin had performed poorly at the Academy, barely scraping by to graduate. Despite her underwhelming scores she was immediately snapped up as an officer on a Cruiser, climbing by leaps and bounds though Emily couldn't see anything especially remarkable about her performance shipboard either. She had eventually been transferred to the Hollis where she was appointed Communications Officer. Emily hoped that Hanna's worth rested in something statistically unquantifiable and that this would explain her strangely lackluster record. She was trying very hard to trust Fulton's character assessments.

When Spencer selected the ship's hangar, a whole host of holos opened to the side, one for each of the eight Sharks and their Commander, Paige McCullers. Paige had the bright grin of so many Assaulter pilots Emily had known, but she could have sworn the eyes looking out from the holo were sad. The Commander was in her flightsuit in the holo, the tight gray and black material hugging close to the lean muscles in her arms, the sharp line of her collarbone, the curve of strong shoulders. Looking at the half-feral grin, the dark eyes, and the coiled tension in her body, Emily could see why they called themselves Sharks. Something in Emily thrilled at the intensity of that energy, some glowing response from a forgotten place in her body to that half-remembered wavelength. Emily shivered. The shuttle was colder than it should have been.

Though her path had taken her elsewhere, she looked forward to being among pilots again. They tended to avoid the Academy like the plague; a fierce rivalry of classism and daredevilry keeping cadets and pilots apart. Emily felt sure that with her history in an Assaulter, she could begin bridging that divide. Coogan was an ass, but he had been right about the politics aboard a ship. She would need all the backers she could get to keep the Hollis unified. Emily was confident that with their leader as an ally, her strongest supporters would come from within the Sharks. She was very much looking forward to meeting Commander McCullers.

"Captain?" the pilot said, drawing her attention away from the holos, "your ship."

Emily stood, crouched under the low height of the shuttle, but her discomfort was the last thing on her mind.

The ship hung in the center of her view through the cockpit window. The ship floated through space, the soft burn of her four massive engines only hinting at the power and speed she was capable of. The central part of her was a perfectly engineered sphere, a wide window ringing its side. Enormous struts emerged from the poles of the sphere, housing levels upon levels. From those angled structures the engines emerged, two on top and bottom- twice again as long as the rest of the Hollis- streaking out behind the ship. Emily could tell from the slightly whiter burn that it was the top engines that were hyper equipped. The starburst insignia on it's lower engines blazed bright silver against the gray of her body, the name and designation of the AGC - Hollis burning the same hue beside it. Emily didn't notice the wild grin on her own face, so similar to the one she'd observed on the Commander.

Spencer smiled beside her, "Welcome home, Captain."

* * *

Paige trudged into the canteen, body exhausted from an overextended workout and unable to shake the migraine storming through her skull since being hijacked by Ezra Fitz. The canteen was not the sanctuary she had hoped it would be- every Shark was clustered around Noel and Nate at the central table, excitable chatter indistinguishable as they all seemed to be speaking at once. Paige didn't need to be involved in whatever squadron drama was going down, and she made a beeline for the food station by the bar, her irritation only growing when she realized just how little breakfast was left after her squadron had picked over it.

To her surprise, Shana immediately left the cluster of pilots and made her way to Paige's side. Usually Shana knew not to harass her before she'd eaten, but one look at the other girl's face and for the second time that morning Paige's heart-rate spiked with fear.

"What's happened?"

"Ben Coogan was relieved of command."

"What? Why?" Paige gaped.

"The new Captain spent five minutes with him and dismissed him." a slight smirk passed across Shana's face, "rumor is he may have left with a bloody nose."

Paige snorted; there was no love lost between Paige and the former First Officer, though Coogan had learned to stay out of the Commander's path for the most part. Paige grabbed a steel tray, scraped the bottom of the pan for the last of the dried out scrambled eggs, and approached the still heated gaggle of pilots, trying to project a relaxed atmosphere.

"This is how it starts- what do you bet she brings another Aug on board to be First Officer?" Nate glared and practically shook with anger, "Another one of _them_ breathing down our necks-"

"Shut-up, Nate." Paige said, tossing her tray onto the table with a clatter, and sliding onto a bench.

"It _is_ kinda scary that the first thing she does as Captain is dismiss the First Officer," Sydney said, rubbing her arm nervously.

"Coogan was a shithead and a bigot." Paige grumbled, stabbing at the re-hydrated eggs on her tray.

A few of her pilots were nodding- none of them had really cared for the overbearing First Officer.

Sean grinned, "Remember that time Coogan tried to ground the Sharks for "dereliction of duty," and the Commander went to his room and-"

"We should refuse to fly in protest," Nate spat, "We don't have to risk our lives for a _fucking Auggie_."

Paige slammed down her fork, snapping the thin metal.

"You pull a stunt like that, and I'll make sure you never touch the controls of an Assaulter again." Paige snarled, and that stopped him in his tracks- stopped all of them. However disparate their temperaments were, every one of them was a pilot to their core- without their ships they were adrift.

The idea that they could ever lose that was a raw nerve, and Paige had just stomped on it. Her squadron stared at her in stunned silence.

"The Commander wouldn't do that," Noel's voice finally broke the quiet, "because she knows Allied Galactic needs nine Sharks more than it needs it's science experiment of a Captain."

Paige shook her head, tried to loosen the inflamed migraine pulsing behind her left eye, tried to remind herself that this was less about the Captain and more about Noel testing the power dynamic. It was her job as a Commander to sort these little snarls out, smooth over the traps laid to trip her up, iron out the wrinkles.

Noel stood, the bigger pilot towered over her from across the table, "I guess what I don't understand, _Commander_, is why you're already choosing _her _over _us_."

Paige closed her eyes- this was just a game, just a dance, just a _fucking civil discussion, just a-_

"I wonder what _Daddy_ McCullers would say if he knew there was an Aug-sympathiser in the family-"

Paige flung her tray at Noel, the taller pilot taking an off-center step backwards as he caught it, eggs spilling down his front. Paige leapt onto the table, digging her boots into the surface before lunging across it to slam into Noel's chest, tackling him to the ground.

* * *

Just before the shuttle door opened, Spencer took Emily's arm, pulled her away from the exit gently. Spencer was holding a jacket, looking somewhat shamefaced, but determined. Emily tried not to sigh as she took the garment from her First Officer, shrugging it on over her sleeveless formal uniform, tugging it over her left arm angrily.

Spencer nodded, buttoning her own blazer, the same royal blue color of an officer as Emily's own uniform, but missing the silver piping that denoted being stationed on the Hollis- Spencer hadn't had time to modified hers yet.

Spencer gave a curt nod to their pilot, who keyed the door open. The First Officer inclined her head slightly.

"After you, Captain," she said.

Emily took a deep breath, shook her hair back, and ducked through the door.

She nearly winced at how brightly the hangar was lit, the harsh fluorescents set high in the ceiling making her blink a few times before she managed to get a good look around the space. Dozens of people were lined up in slightly dishevelled rows in front of the docked Assaulters and half a dozen larger transport ships scattered throughout the bay. Emily guessed that nearly every officer and non-essential staff member must be in attendance. As she stepped down the ramp sporadic applause broke out, just sparse enough to be awkward and lasting just a little too long. Emily kept her head up, focused on the reassuring presence of Spencer just behind her. They walked through the rows of servicemen and women, Emily trying to keep her steps at a decorous pace, every now and again giving serious nods in acknowledgment of the salutes thrown up as she passed. Waiting for her at the bay doors were her Senior Officers and Civilian Advisors, the former in crisp blue uniforms, the latter in black. Emily realized with sudden horror that she had not planned an introduction for herself.

"Welcome aboard Captain Fields," Hanna Marin said with an excited smile, saving Emily from stammering something half-baked, "as head of your welcoming committee, I would like to present you with-," the blonde rooted through an off the shoulder bag that was not strictly regulation, pulling out a silver smart watch, "the key to the Hollis," she finished with a wink.

Emily smiled in return and took the watch, snapping it onto her wrist, feeling the hum as the ship's all access pass mapped itself to her particular biomagnetic signature.

"Thank you, Officer Marin. I appreciate the welcome." Emily said, trying to catch the eyes of each of her Officers and Advisors in turn.

"Um, we don't actually have one for you, yet," Hanna started, staring awkwardly at Spencer, "it was kind of short notice and-"

Hanna was saved from the rest of her explanation by the entrance of slight man with vaguely curly dark hair dashing in. He practically bowled into their group, pushing through them before latching onto Caleb Rivers.

"Caleb!" he gasped, Emily taking in the sweat running down his face and the flight jacket reading 'Lucas,' "we need your help. You have to calm her down!"

"Is there an engine problem?" Emily asked, already taking several strides forward, ready to meet the first challenge of her Captaincy head on.

"Oh. No." The somewhat mousy man said, "No problem, Captain."

His wide eyes and death grip on Rivers' arm seemed to contradict that statement. Caleb looked clueless, eyes shifting from the man glued to his arm and the Captain in front of him. Lucas remembered himself long enough to straighten and salute before turning his attention back to Caleb.

"Just- need to steal Rivers for a moment." Lucas shifted from foot to foot.

"Pilot, what's-" Spencer began, her warning suddenly cut short by the sound of yells coming from past the bay doors.

Emily frowned, if no one wanted to tell her what was going on, she would solve the problem herself. She followed the sounds at a fast walk, Spencer pausing long enough to dismiss the personnel in the hangar and then matching her pace without hesitation. Lucas and Caleb trailed behind them. As the corridors spidered outwards and their course became less sure, Spencer grabbed Lucas, pushing him to the front with a stern glare, and he led them towards what Emily soon realized were the sounds of a fight.

Emily pressed their pace and soon they were at a hole-in-the-wall canteen with "The Reef" spray painted over a busted door. The Captain only needed to glance inside to know it was like every other pilot's only club she had come across- smelling of equal parts engine and kitchen grease and dirty enough to scare off any maintenance crew. Her attention was drawn to the center of the room, where the tables had been shoved back and the pilots were clustered in a loose ring around two of their own locked in a death grip on the floor. Most looked torn with indecision, but a few were shouting encouragements. The combatants moved quickly, but it seemed to Emily that the smaller pilot had the upper hand, slamming the burlier man she was fighting onto his back and pinning him, pulling back her fist to slam it home just as the Captain pushed through the crowd.

Emily wrenched off her constraining jacket and lunged for the girl, catching her in a bear hug from behind and dragging her backwards. She could feel the pilot struggling in her grip, the muscles of her arms straining against Emily's hold. Before she could lose her, Emily switched her grip, throwing an arm around the girl's neck in a headlock, hoping to subdue her. The pilot fought to escape from Emily's grasp, throwing an elbow behind her that Emily caught, yanking the other girl's arm down to send her off center. At the same moment that their balance shifted, Emily hooked her foot around the fighter's right ankle, sending the girl pitching to the floor on her knee, hissing in pain as bone met metal. Emily caught her shoulder before the girl could fall forward completely, yanking her back and sideways to slam her spine against the wall, the reverberation from the pilot's impact travelling up Emily's own arm. She crouched over the winded girl, straddling her half-seated form and pinning her to the wall with a forearm across her chest.

The girl's head was slumped forward, and her auburn braid fell across Emily's arm, the softness of it belying the strength of the muscles Emily felt shifting beneath her. Blood was dripping down her gray tanktop, landing dangerously close to Emily's arm, from what she assumed was a bloody nose. She was panting, and Emily could feel the persistent rise and fall of the girl's chest as she held her against the wall. She smelled like steel and sweat and blood and something else- something hard and burning, like a gasoline fire on a night you could see your breath freeze. Emily pushed forward harder, feeling the pilot's sharp collarbone digging into her forearm. The girl growled, head finally coming back, wild eyes flicking up to catch her own.

For a moment Emily faltered, loosened her grip, nearly rocking back on her heels.

It was Paige.

Commander McCullers.

_Her _Commander.

A sudden shift from the pilot was all Emily needed to remember herself, to again feel and fight the urge to grab Paige's shoulders and slam her back into the wall. She compensated by redoubling the pressure of her hold on the pilot, pressing so hard her own arm ached as she watched the shift in the young Commander's dark glaring eyes from violence, to pain, to anger. Her gaze shifted to the arm Emily had her pinned with, to the lines and straight angles, the diamonds and hexagons of blue that faintly glowed across Emily's brown skin. Emily saw her identity come to Paige in a flash of understanding.

Emily braced herself for another attack, but Paige just closed her eyes, breathing deep. Emily could feel the muscles relaxing beneath her as though Paige was consciously sawing through the coiled tension in her body, knot by knot. When her eyes finally opened Emily could see that she had her fury under control, but the challenge had not left her brown eyes.

Emily struggled against the desire to wrest this pilot's control away; against the wild and wolfish instinct to bite the back of her neck, to hold Paige and shake her until she stilled. Until she submitted.

Paige held up her hands, open palmed. It was a gesture of surrender that didn't reach her eyes, but Emily loosened her grip anyway, helped the pilot to her feet, Paige's calloused fingers momentarily tangling in hers. They stood and stared at each other, the canteen dead quiet during their whole ordeal. Paige wiped blood off her face.

"Captain," Paige grinned, blood in her mouth.

"Commander," Emily replied coolly, "I've been looking forward to meeting you."


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: oh god, mona! why?! i swear this show just loves to kill my favorite characters of dubious morals. there are no blue murder trunks in space though, so take comfort in this.**

* * *

"Commander McCullers, reporting." Paige said, tossing up a salute that she quickly let die when she realized the Captain behind the desk didn't seem interested in looking up at her. She sniffed, held her sleeve up to her nose and hung her head back a bit. Getting blood out of a dress uniform wasn't easy, but after Emily had ordered her to report to the Captain's office and stalked out of the canteen, First Officer Hastings had grabbed Paige's arm, growling at her to 'clean up first.' Paige had hurriedly thrown on the formal uniform she was currently bleeding on.

Captain Fields remained absorbed with whatever paperwork she was reading, jacket carefully folded over the back of her chair, long dark curls swept to the side. She looked sharp- like a knife edge Paige couldn't stop herself from testing. The Captain didn't even bother glancing up as she addressed a question towards Paige.

"Would you care to explain to me, Commander, why after being aboard the Hollis for no more than fifteen minutes, I had to break up a fight between you and another pilot?"

"A friendly sparring exercise. Nothing out of the ordinary." Paige shrugged.

The Captain finally looked up at her. She looked like she wanted to toss Paige out a window. It was a very attractive look, Paige thought with a smile.

"That didn't look friendly." The Captain replied, crossing her arms.

The Commander grinned wolfishly, "Sharks tend to play rough."

"What about when I grabbed you?"

"Reflex," Paige answered, absently rubbing the shoulder the Captain had seized- she would have a bruise there. "It's never a good idea to sneak up on an Assaulter pilot. I apologize if I hurt you."

"I don't believe I was the one injured." came the Captain's soft reply.

"I suppose not." Paige said, the slight edge of humiliation making her stand a little taller, square her shoulder a bit more, and sharpen her words, "I didn't think we'd be getting a Captain who would be quite so 'hands on' in her leadership. You've been making a lot of bold moves for someone just leaving the Academy."

The Captain's brown eyes flashed, and for a moment Paige was sure she was going to come across the desk at her, "Is every officer on the Hollis this insubordinate?"

"Captain _Fulton_ knew the value of an honest opinion- she wasn't threatened by them. She didn't need to muzzle her officers."

Emily's fingers drummed against her crossed arms, "And Officer Coogan was an example of that leadership style?"

Paige snorted, "Ben Coogan was an asshole. He didn't belong on the Hollis. Fulton had him foisted on her- some Homeworlder family wanting to pad out their legacy with war service. It was a concession she had to make, but he was never one of us."

"And you're confident that everyone else on this ship is 'one of you'? Including the pilot you were trying to kill?"

Paige felt her shoulders go up in anger, "No one was getting _killed_!"

The Captain arched an eyebrow at her and Paige forced herself to remain calm, to fake dismissal. She wouldn't lose.

"We all have a little cabin fever is all. Anyone would, being cooped up on this tin can." Paige said, folding herself into one of the chairs facing Emily's desk.

The Captain bristled, already more protective of the ship than Paige realized.

"I don't believe I offered you a seat Commander," she said coolly.

Paige tried to hide her momentary surprise and grinned, standing again with a salute. She flinched as she tried to put weight on her damaged knee. She could have sworn she saw the Captain take in her off-center posture, the ghost of a smile across Emily's lips.

"Have your people control their tempers, Commander. Try to lead by example in that respect."

Captain Fields stood and turned her back on the Commander, facing the long window of her office.

Paige knew a dismissal when she saw one, but she enjoyed needling the Captain, and she never liked leaving without the last word.

Paige chuckled softly, "You know, Fulton used to stand just there when she was lecturing me. You can even see where the carpet's worn."

Paige watched Emily glance down at the threadbare patch beneath her boots, her feet shifting unconsciously to better fill the space.

Paige approached the window, standing close to the Captain, her nearness a challenge. Paige could feel the Captain tense beside her.

"Do you miss it?" She asked. Paige had meant to say something cutting, but she was curious.

Emily glanced at her and looked away, back out at the stars.

"It's not the same," Paige explained, "a ship like this. The Hollis is too much weight. It..._lumbers_." Paige grimaced, pressing her palm against the glass, like she could reach through. How Emily could live without the freedom of an Assaulter at her fingertips- how she could bear that half-life- Paige didn't know.

Emily's eyes had a faraway look as she spoke, "When my Assaulter was tagged, I remember being frightened, but not surprised. They're built to crumple and pull apart. One mistake and you're through." The Captain met her eyes, "The pilot's were that way too." She looked away again, "When I survived- when I was put back together- I didn't know what to do with myself. But I knew I needed something solid beneath me. I wanted to be part of something that was built to last."

Paige turned the words over in her head, handling their truths carefully, studying Emily's face to see how they'd informed the way she held herself. With the Captain's attention out the window and Paige free to admire her, the Commander allowed herself a moment of lowered defense- a shift away from the antagonism of the verbal battle. Paige gave herself just a second to indulge in the thought that had been running through her mind ever since she'd met the Captain's furious eyes looking down on her in the canteen:

She was beautiful.

The knowledge was a fuzzy ache in her palms and her calves whenever the Captain spoke to her. Paige dismissed the feeling as misguided loneliness. Her moment of indulgence was done.

"It was Fulton that built the Hollis. And she left her mark here, Captain. In a thousand ways." Paige said, gesturing to the worn spot on the carpet.

Emily's eyes went dark, but Paige didn't think with anger. It was curious look, and it unbalanced her.

"And I've already left mine," the Captain said, nodding to the place where Paige's open collar exposed the bruises from where her fingers had dug into Paige's skin.

Paige felt a jolt travel up her spine, a warm tingle spreading from the base of her neck. She looked away from the Captain and out the window.

The view was so much less complicated.

The Captain sighed, and shook her hair back imperiously.

"If your pilots have so much excess energy, I'll have to clear more flight time," she said.

Paige grinned.

"You'll fly every day."

The Commander's grin faltered.

* * *

"Is it a wise idea to tire out the pilots like this?" Spencer asked, signing off on another order form for grav-engine parts.

Emily shook her head, "This won't last long. And we're still in Homeworld space. By the time we leave the non-com zone they'll have learned their lesson and I'll put them back on a thrice weekly schedule."

Spencer shrugged and sighed, begrudgingly deferring to the Captain's judgment on interpersonal strategies. Emily had needed to do a substantial amount of talking her First Officer down after her fight with the Commander- Spencer had been all for an old fashioned marooning on a deserted planet.

Emily thought her "lesson" was more than punishment enough. She knew from experience the incredible strain an Assaulter put on a pilot's body and mind, and she fully expected the Sharks to buckle under the pressure after a week and a half. Every time Emily felt a twinge of doubt about her course she remembered the grating presence of Paige in her office, distracting as a burr under her collar. The cuff soaked in blood, the unbuttoned collar, the lazy grace of her stance, and the ever present grin- it had all infuriated Emily. She had wanted to grab her by the lapels and push her against the desk, get in her face, wipe the grin off of it, learn the shape of her mouth when it was shocked instead.

Emily shook her head.

"It'll be fine," she said, more to herself than Spencer.

She moved over to the command console, the Captain's chair and terminal set in a sunken area in the center of the room, the rest of the the stations radiating up and out from her seat, almost like an ampitheatre. The view from her chair was an unobstructed look out the massive smart glass window that continued out past the edges of the room, wrapping around the entire central sphere of the Hollis. An empty cargo vessel launched from the hangar in the upper strata of the ship, drifting across the view window in a brief shimmer of gold as it passed through the Hollis' shields, the smart glass picking up it's presence and displaying information on its status and vitals.

Spencer shook her holo-paper blank, stepping down to join Emily. "That was the last of them," she said, nodding towards the ship, "we're fully supplied until we reach the edge of the non-com zone."

Emily nodded, chewing her lip and staring into the expanse of space before her.

"Would you like to sit in your chair now, Captain?" Spencer asked with a raised eyebrow, the hint of a soft smile at the corner of her lips.

Emily turned to her First Officer, excitement and fear in equal parts in her eyes.

"Yes," she said, "I think I would."

* * *

Paige tongued the loose molar at the back of her mouth as she scraped away grease and grav-burn from the underside of her Assaulter. Noel had a mean left. She'd have the Med Lab reconstruct the tooth later- right now she was too skittish around Ezra Fitz to stomach it. Besides, she already had one gut-twisting job today, she didn't need another.

"You about done hiding, Commander?" Shana said, knocking on the side of Paige's ship.

"Nope." Paige replied, scrubbing at a particularly tough stain.

Shana grabbed Paige's boot, rolling the Commander and the creeper she was lying on out from under the ship.

"Hey," Paige protested, "if I get demoted for not having a freshly shined ship on the first day of our Captain's amazing endurance marathon, it'll be your fault."

"Oh, yeah, thanks for that," Shana said, rolling her eyes, "we're all _real _excited."

While Paige had briefed the Sharks on their assignment, she had yet to speak to them about the blow-up in the canteen. Most were uneasily avoiding her, isolating themselves in small cliques, worried. It wasn't good.

"Ugh, okay, jesus, I'll talk to everyone." Paige grumbled.

"Good," Shana said, her eyebrow in a near permanent quirk at her Commander's antics.

"Now can you let go of my leg? The Captain fucked it _all _up." Paige said. Shana dumped her boot unceremoniously. Paige winced, and Shana sighed, offering her a hand up.

"Come on, old timer, everyone's waiting in the canteen."

Paige shook her head, taking the proffered hand and hauling herself up- there were times she bitterly regretted her promotion.

The mood in 'The Reef' wasn't much changed. Sean was kicking the laser pinball machine with more aggression than usual, Sydney at a table hyperfocused on a training holo with her team around her, Nate and Noel at the bar drinking, shoulders hunched and mouths set in firm lines. Only Lucas gave her a nervous smile as she entered, the rookie leaning awkwardly against the wall as near to the door as he could get.

She gave him a smile in response, trying to convey more confidence than she felt. Paige cleared her throat, waving over the Sharks whose attention she had to gather around the central table. She kicked her foot up on the bench, leaning over her knee, feeling like a coach about to give the inspirational speech to a hangdog team.

"We start flying again today- really flying. I know how much you've all wanted that, and I'm hoping that want will carry us through however difficult it may be to get in our Assaulters every day."

Noel yawned. Sydney drew nervous patterns on the table with her finger.

Paige sighed, swallowed her pride, "And I should let you know I'm sorry. I shouldn't have threatened- shouldn't have fought, shouldn't have brought this on us with a new Captain in place," Paige shook her head, "A Commander shouldn't need to do any of that. And I'll be better."

Lucas nodded. Shana gave her a small smile.

"We fight. We disagree. We get fucking sick of each other's faces," Paige said and Sean grinned, shoving Sydney, "but we're Sharks. We're family."

She stared at Noel, meeting his dark eyes with her own, willing him to pull together. Noel gave an almost imperceptible nod, and Paige's anxiety unwound just a fraction. This was a sprain, not a break.

"Family?" Nate all but spat, "We're practically lemmings- we're expendable. So are _you_ Commander."

Sean bristled and Shana looked like she was about to knife Nate- Paige shook her head at them.

"That's what the rest of them think- the officers, the generals, and the fucking Academy, but it's not what Fulton thought. And it's not how we think. We look out for each other, Nate."

Nate narrowed his eyes, "You sure about that Commander? You sure when it comes down to it you'll pick us?" Nate advanced a step, and Paige kept her fists carefully balled at her sides, "Who's side are you on?"

The rest of the squadron watched her closely, and Paige didn't want to lose them here, like this.

"The Sharks," she said, "always the Sharks."

* * *

"Good morning, Captain!"

Emily rebounded a step, thrown off by the greeting from the tiny woman seemingly waiting to ambush her the moment she stepped out of her Captain's quarters. She glanced at her smartwatch, certain she'd risen early enough to make her own solitary explorations.

Mona Vanderwaal seemed to notice her imbalance and she smiled like a cat with a bird, lips redder than blood.

"I thought we could walk, you and I? Cruisers can be such a maze. Sometimes you think you're heading for the Mess and you end up in an air lock!" Vanderwaal laughed, as if the idea of being vented into space was just _too funny._

Emily nodded to her Officer, regaining her composure, "Of course. I'd appreciate that."

Mona smiled and pushed her dark hair back, exposing the thin line of an implant running from her temple to behind her ear. It's fluid lines were black brushed metal, a green glow pulsing through the central course of it.

Mona caught her stare, very nearly striking a pose as she ran her finger over the implant.

"Like it? It's our HypAd model. But _shhh_-," Mona said, holding a finger to her lips and winking, "Don't tell anyone- it's a proprietary line- not open to the public just yet."

"What does it do?" Emily asked, falling into step with Mona as she led them through the personnel corridors.

"Hyperadrenalism? Think of it as the ultimate multi-tasking tool. A non-upgraded brain has two levels to work with- the conscious and subconscious- and rarely do we exploit them to their full potential. The HypAd creates more subconscious levels, fully accessible, allowing you to run multiple 'programs,' if you will,"

"Sounds exhausting," Emily replied.

Mona gave her Cheshire grin again, "For some, perhaps. It creates as many levels as the user is competent to handle. My record is eight, but initial tests suggest up to fourteen simultaneous levels are possible." The smaller girl stopped abruptly, Emily coming to a halt a few steps ahead of her in surprise.

"May I?" Mona asked, barely waiting for Emily to nod before taking the Captain's hand and rolling up the cuff of her sleeve a few inches. She studied the lines and geometries of Emily's Augment with an intensity that unnerved the Captain.

"Beautiful," she concluded, letting Emily's arm drop. The Captain rolled her sleeve back down awkwardly as the Science Officer continued, beginning to walk again, "but beauty is nothing compared to functionality. My company could have given you more than an arm- we could have given you an _upgrade._" Mona smirked.

Emily shook her head- Vanderwaal Industries had been an impossibility, "Implants don't work for me," she explained. Emily was part of the 20 percent of the population whose bodies rejected implants; a problem Vanderwaal Industries had thrown no small amount of money behind with zero success.

"It's a shame people feel like they have no other option," Mona said, her face a mask of sympathy, "and end up giving away a little piece of their humanity."

Emily felt anger prickle along her arms, "I didn't lose anything, Officer. My Augment gave me back the ability to do what I love- to continue to serve."

"Of course," Mona said, smile as slippery as an oil slick, "who serves better than a machine?"

Emily turned to face Mona, mouth already open with an angry diatribe before the smaller officer stopped her.

"The Mess Hall, Captain," she said, gesturing to the open cafeteria they'd arrived at, "You'll have to forgive me if I don't join you- I like to work through breakfast."

Emily closed her eyes to compose herself as Mona waltzed away, her words as precise and tactical as a heart surgery.


	5. Chapter 5

**hello! so sorry this has taken so long to update- between travel and illness and writing prompts for tumblr that are too hardcore to post on fanfic, i have been a little behind. thanks for your continued reading and reviews- they make this all so much better.**

* * *

Paige yanked back the overdrive lever for the eighth time this flight. She slammed her body forward and readied herself to adjust her thrusters, only for her starboard engines to sputter and die, sending her into an uncontrolled corkscrew. Paige quickly cut all power to her engines and moments later she was drifting in the 30 second dead space Caleb had promised her when he'd installed the overdrive upgrade in her Assaulter.

"Okay, Commander- time to head back in." Caleb said as soon as the core cooled down and her engines came back online.

"One more pass Caleb," Paige replied into her comlink, wiping a hand across her forehead. She hadn't been able to perfect the maneuver yet. Beyond requiring a precise calibration of her engines that she had only a split second to adjust, it required her body to move instantly in sync with the ship at a breakneck speed or she'd spin completely out of control. Caleb had been coaching her through it, and she felt frustratingly close to making it work, but both she and her ship were tired, her Assaulter's core inching dangerously towards the red zone.

"Would you like to land under your own power, or should I turn on shipboard AI and have A bring you back to the hangar?" Caleb said.

Paige sighed in disgust, snapping her thrusters forward and leaning into a looping turn back towards the ship. The Hollis sat in the air, a hulking piece of metal and engines with none of the grace and freedom of Paige's Assaulter. It was a ship that was _guided _not _flown,_ and coming back to the hangar always felt like returning to a cage.

She radioed Kahn to bring his team in and went through the motions of making her landing, movements precise and angry.

As soon as she landed Paige tumbled out of her Assaulter, just barely managing to grab hold of the siding before she could go down on her injured knee again.

"Ten point landing," Caleb said, striding up.

"That was a controlled fall," Paige said, wincing and taking the proffered cup of coffee from the Head Engineer. She gulped at the peace offering greedily, very nearly spitting it out once she managed to taste it.

"_Jesus!_ Synth coffee? Are you trying to kill me?" She spluttered.

Caleb shrugged, taking a tentative sip from his own cup, "Commissary's been way stricter about what I can get on credit since the First Officer's been looking over the books."

"First they take our Captain, now they take our coffee?" Paige shook her head, "This cannot be borne."

"Yeah, screw the Technorganics- these are the real battles," Caleb smiled, but Paige could see he looked tired. Flying every day wasn't just taking a toll on the squadron- Caleb was working twice as hard to keep their Assaulters in working order.

It had been two and a half weeks of the grueling training regimen. By the middle of the second week, Paige had rotated the Shark's schedules, only taking out a team a day rather than the whole squadron. The respite gave her exhausted pilot's a bit more energy, but Paige still didn't know how long they could last like this. She was even less sure how long she could keep up with the daily strain- the burn in her muscles long since giving way to an aching numbness.

Paige looked across the hangar, Blacktip Team just now docking. Nate stayed in his ship, head back and eyes closed. Noel and Lucas slid out of their Assaulters, the ace looking very pale and her rookie looking as though he might throw up.

"Can you believe they're still putting us through this?" Paige asked through gritted teeth.

Caleb shook his head, running a hand through dishevelled hair, "I just keep the ships running. Power games between officers are above my pay grade."

Paige grimaced, "It's not like that, Caleb. I'm not like _them-_ this isn't a power play."

"Really," Caleb scoffed, "Then what is it?"

Paige squared her shoulders. "This is about strength- about the Sharks not buckling under pressure. About proving we can take whatever they want to throw at us."

"And exactly how long do you think you can keep this act up?"

Paige glared, "As long as we have to."

"And will that be before or after you drop dead? Maybe this is an opportunity to get it through your thick skull that you can't do everything alone. That this self-imposed martyrdom doesn't need to happen!" Caleb exploded, Paige's eyebrows jumping in surprise. She was still trying to rally her tired brain into formulating a reply when Caleb sighed in disgust, the engineer's shoulders slumping.

"Never mind. Not my business," he concluded, heading towards the hangar doors before Paige could respond.

Paige closed her eyes, leaning against her Assaulter, feeling the telltale thrum behind her left eye of an approaching migraine. She'd talk to Caleb later. She opened her eyes, straightening her spine as she moved towards her pilots.

Noel passed by her with with a nod and a grunt, Paige giving his arm arm a weak but encouraging punch as he walked away. She moved to Lucas' side, the rookie still bent over with his hands white knuckled over his knees.

"Breathe slow, rookie. In through the nose, out through the mouth," She advised.

"Does that really work?" Lucas wheezed, peering up at her through damp curls.

"Who the hell knows," Paige replied, "do it anyway."

She stood with the younger pilot while he got his breath back, gradually straightening to lean against his ship. Paige patted has shoulder.

"How are you doing, Lucas?" she asked, trying to convey that she meant more than just whether he was going to be sick at the moment.

Her rookie frowned, sweat running down his face as he shook his head, "Not well. I can't keep up."

"It won't always be this tough, we'll be back on a regular schedule soon and then-" Paige began before Lucas cut her off.

"No- it's not going to get better. _I'm _not going to get better. I can't keep up with Noel, even at my best. I just get in their way." Lucas said, looking away.

Paige exhaled a long breath, blowing her own flyaway hair out of her face. Lucas had a tendency to overthink his flying, making him hesitate a crucial moment too long before his maneuvers. She knew if Lucas could just get out of his head a little more, it would vastly improve his reaction time.

"Noel flies on instinct. His body knows how to move with the machine. That's just the kind of pilot he is, and you can't force yourself to be like that. You can't be taught instinct."

Lucas' shoulders slumped and he rubbed a hand across his face, "maybe I should wash out before I get tagged out."

Paige shook her head, "Don't be an idiot. You're a pilot- this is what you do." She shoved his shoulder, pulling his attention back to her while while she spoke, "and you're a good one."

"Not like Noel."

"No, not like him." Paige leaned against the Assaulter next to Lucas, "there are two kinds of pilots- the ones who fly on instinct, who _just know _by the feel of the ship where they need to lean harder into a turn or when to cut an engine. And there are the pilots who think fast, who keep every number in their head, who watch the thrust percentages and memorize the maneuvers. You're that kind of pilot, Lucas. It makes you steady."

Lucas laughed, the sound coming out more as a wheeze, "That doesn't sound very glamorous."

"Maybe," Paige conceded, "The pilots who fly on instinct may not have to deal with all the mechanics, but they don't know how to cope in a situation where they can't win."

Lucas' eyebrows drew together in confusion.

"Noel's the kind of pilot who will go into every firefight hot and won't ever believe for a second that he can't win, even when it's impossible."

"Isn't that what makes us good Assaulter pilots- that we're one step above a kamikaze?" Lucas said with a lopsided grin. Paige looked away with a frown, gathering her words.

"It takes a leader to understand when to stop- when to save a life. When the glory and the death and the win isn't worth it, but the squadron is," Paige met her pilots' eyes, "You're steady, Lucas. You know the numbers, and you remember the odds, and you know when you can't win. You could be a Commander someday. Don't wash out."

Lucas looked embarrassed and shocked and proud. Paige put a hand on his shoulder.

"You deserve to be here, Lucas. You're a Shark."

* * *

"Good morning, Captain," A's even intonation permeated the room as the ship's computer brought up the ensconced lights lining the walls of Emily's quarters. The room warmed with the gentle amber light and Emily blinked away the darkness.

"First Officer Hastings has requested a holo conference at your convenience," the computer's soft voice continued.

Emily had lain awake long before she had requested A to rouse her, curled on her side and staring out the window of her quarters into space. Usually the view calmed her- the comfort of stars she knew the names of, home to systems she had read about- feeling like she could reach out and touch them, curled and miraculous in her hand. There were too many other things on Emily's mind for the comfort of the view to calm her though, and one of them was insisting on a holo 'at her convenience.'

Emily readied herself quickly, showering and tying her hair back in a loose pony-tail, flicking it out from the back of her Captain's uniform.

"A, please open communications with First Officer Hastings." she requested. A obeyed with a ping, and Spencer answered almost immediately.

She looked like she hadn't slept. To be fair, Spencer always looked like she hadn't slept.

"We had a radiation leak on the lower starboard engine- no contamination. It's been repaired now," she began without preamble.

Emily squinted, trying to read Spencer's expression. Rad leaks happened half a dozen times a week and were patched with a regularity bordering on routine.

"Did you really holo to tell me about a rad leak?" Emily asked. If Spencer was caught off-guard she didn't show it.

"No." She replied impassively.

"So?" Emily led her.

"It's about our mission posting-" Spencer began.

Emily suppressed a groan- her First Officer had brought up their lack of orders from the Allied Galactic Council _frequently. _Spencer had an obsessive personality, and while it could make her an excellent First Officer with an eye to detail, it could also make her freeze on a single track, endlessly spinning her wheels. Part of Emily's job was making sure that Spencer's intensity of focus was properly directed.

"Spencer, there's nothing to worry about. We're still a week away from the non-com line- a lot can change at the front in that time. They'll give us our orders when they know where the Hollis will be most useful," Emily explained. Spencer looked doubtful, so the Captain decided to try her powers of redirection.

"Take the daily report on fleet movements and conditions at the front, and put together a dossier of possible stations and planets the Hollis could be sent to, based on your reading of the situation. We'll hold a briefing with the Senior Officers detailing the information and preparing them for any circumstance we may be sent into." It wasn't technically busy work- keeping her Senior Officer's heads in the correct mindset and limber for any course was an excellent way to keep them prepared, but it wasn't exactly a common practice.

It seemed to strike a chord with Spencer though- Emily could practically hear the gears working in the other girl's head through the holo.

"Heard, Captain," she said, and reached to end the holo.

"And Spencer?" Emily said.

"Yes, Captain?"

"When it's just us, can you call me Emily?"

Spencer gave an enigmatic and characteristically Hastings smile, "Heard, Emily," she said, cutting the holo feed.

Emily would have smiled, but the conversation had done little to still her own concerns. What she'd said about positions at the front being changeable was true, but her assessment that it was the reason Allied Galactic hadn't sent them their mission parameters was not. The Hollis should have received a posting long before now- subject to a later change or not- and the continued silence from the Council gnawed at Emily's thoughts.

She tried to shake off her concerns as she exited her quarters- perhaps Spencer could use help with her project- when she nearly ran into the Communications Officer waiting just outside her door. Emily was beginning to get used to being ambushed.

"Good morning Captain!" Hanna Marin greeted her, handing her a steaming cup of coffee, her own practically finished.

"Thank you, Officer Marin," Emily replied, taking a sip of her coffee and trying not to grimace. Synth coffee was revolting.

"You look a little-" Hanna paused, "tired," she concluded with more tact than Emily would have given her credit for. "I know what will cheer you up! The Marin grand tour!"

Emily's smile was tired as she shook her head at Hanna. "Thank you for the thought, but I've already taken a tour around the ship, Officer."

"Of course you have, it's been what- three weeks? It would be pretty embarrassing if you didn't know your way to the Mess by now," Emily raised an eyebrow as the incorrigible blonde continued, "But I'm not talking about the boring tour- _this_ is the tour of the seedy underbelly of the Hollis. "

"There's a seedy underbelly?" Emily questioned, concern in her stance.

"Maybe not seedy. Maybe just sort of grubby," Hanna amended, gauging Emily's reaction, "Definitely fun. Relatively fun. For a military ship."

Emily agreed with cautious optimism- she hadn't exactly had a chance to hit it off with the crew. Between replacing a beloved Captain, dismissing a senior officer, and getting on the bad side of the legendary Shark squadron, Emily was lucky crew members didn't bolt the other way the moment they saw her coming.

Hanna was an excellent tour guide, spouting off stories and lore about the Hollis nearly every step of the way. Her monologue to Emily was frequently interrupted by stops to greet fellow crew members. Hanna seemed to know every single one of them by name, along with intimate details about all of them- an impressive feat for a ship the size of the Hollis. Emily took the opportunity to introduce herself personally at each stop, and although she was sure she hadn't retained all their names, she felt a pleasant sense of comradery informally interacting with her crew.

"If you can't find something you need at the Commissary, Aria Montgomery can have it ordered for you at our next port." Hanna said, giving her next- of many- tips.

Emily gave her a quizzical look, wondering how the ship's counsellor could acquire goods outside Allied Galactic's prescribed parameters.

Hanna winked, "She writes them off as 'mental health necessities.'"

Emily struggled to hide a smile- it wouldn't be appropriate to outwardly condone bending the rules, but she knew the kind of relief a non-regulation pillow or non re-hydrated carton of milk could be for crew members facing months in space. Hanna continued with her walkthrough.

"Just don't see Aria in her official capacity. She has a tendency to talk more than her patients, and I'm sure you'll hear more than enough about her relationship with Ezra Fitz without seeking it out."

Emily shook her head- shipboard romances were another technically forbidden inevitability. By now they had reached the convoluted, pipe infested corridors near the upper engines. Though they were at the highest point of the Hollis, Emily felt like they were traversing the innards and depths of a giant beast, the faint hum of the engines it's breath and heartbeat. Though Emily had lost track of their direction four turns ago, Hanna remained surefooted as ever.

"And this is where the magic happens," Hanna announced, gesturing towards the dilapidated Engine Control room.

"For the last time, Hanna, you can't nickname it 'magic'-" Caleb Rivers called, his back to the door as Emily and Hanna entered.

"Oh. Captain!" Caleb exclaimed, saluting awkwardly as he dropped his legs from where they were resting on the command console. "Hanna likes to nickname my, uh," the engineer's eyes tracked madly, finally landing on the console, "equipment!" He said, flustered, "This one is 'magic' because I'm so good with them," Caleb continued, twiddling his fingers to mime typing. Hanna widened her eyes at him and Caleb immediately stopped making the gesture. "Computers!" He blurted again, "Not my fingers!"

"This idiot is our brilliant Head Engineer, and my even more brilliant boyfriend." Hanna said, kissing his cheek while Caleb stared at the Captain in terror.

"That doesn't make any sense Hanna-" Caleb started, eyes darting between Emily and his girlfriend.

"Learn to take a compliment." Hanna ruffled his hair.

Caleb rolled his eyes, but Emily could see nothing but affection in them.

"Seriously, he's a national treasure. Or galactic treasure. Whatever."

There would undoubtedly have been more pair bonding sweetness had Hanna not been distracted by a crew member passing by outside.

"Bridgette! I needed to talk to you!" Hanna yelled, catching up with her quarry just outside the door.

"You have a very unique girlfriend." Emily said, trying to put Caleb at ease over the technical breach of conduct. Her Head Engineer smiled, leaning back a little more comfortably in his chair.

"Hanna's something else," Caleb said as he watched Hanna speaking animatedly to his fellow engineer. "You're very lucky to have her, Captain," he continued, shifting his attention to Emily, "She could be a Council Aid by now. She had an offer."

Emily's eyebrows went up in surprise, but before she could ask more, Hanna came bounding back into the Engine Control room.

"Sorry, brilliant boyfriend- I have to steal the Captain away from you. We aren't done with our tour yet!"

Emily returned the wave Caleb sent her way as she allowed herself to be pulled along by Hanna, the other girl still routinely stopping to chat with crew members as they passed. Emily took the opportunity of a brief lull in her constant chatter to edge in her own question.

"Caleb said you'd had an offer with with the Allied Galactic Council. That's quite the honor."

"I guess. But it's Homeworld side, and Caleb won't ever leave the Hollis. And I won't leave him, so," Hanna shrugged, as if turning down an appointment as a Council Aid was a no brainer. Emily didn't have the opportunity to press for more details, as they'd arrived at Hanna's next stop on their tour- The Reef.

"I seem to remember pilot's clubs being members only." Emily said, recalling the many late nights she had spent with her old comrades in tight quarters just like this one. It felt like another life- like she was an entirely different shape and height and angle from that girl who had sat in a flightsuit, laughing at the careless jokes daring death to catch them. Every pilot she had known was so sure they could outrun it with eight engines behind them. None did.

Hanna shook Emily out out of her revery with a laugh, leading her inside.

"Oh, it is. I designed their flight jackets though, so I have a standing invitation," Hanna explained, "and you're the Captain, so I _think _that means you can go wherever you want," she finished with a wink.

Hanna traipsed across the room, the confidence of her walk almost lending the canteen some class. She stopped by a scarred laser pinball machine, patting it's side affectionately.

"Sean Ackard has all the highscores- don't even try to beat them. He _freaked out _when I had Caleb program the top score with Lucas' initials. He followed him around for a week demanding Lucas tell him his secret. Lucas had _no_ idea what he was on about- I've never seen him so terrified."

Emily laughed, a sense of fondness for the pilot's she barely knew humming in her chest. Hanna's story was cut short by a shuffling presence at the canteen entrance. Emily turned to watch Noel and Nate shamble into The Reef, both men looking tired- a haggard look on Noel's normally handsome face, and a dangerous mania in Nate's. They both froze when they saw the Captain.

"At ease," Emily said softly, gesturing for them to have a seat at the bar they had clearly been heading towards. Hanna waved.

Nate looked about to say something, but Noel grabbed his arm, steering him towards the bar and pouring them both a drink, their backs to Emily.

Two other pilots made their slow way into the canteen, too engrossed in conversation with each other to notice Emily immediately. If she'd thought Noel and Nate had looked tired, it was nothing compared to how exhausted Lucas looked, face so gaunt he looked ill. The Commander's arm was around his shoulders, perhaps in comradery, but more likely to support him.

The new Captain and the Commander had not seen much of each other over the past several weeks- Emily occupied in the Control Room and in meetings with her Senior Officers, and Paige seemed to steer clear of the personnel quarters and the Mess Hall. It was surprisingly easy to avoid someone on the Hollis, if you were being deliberate about it. Emily's irritation with her Commander had grown with each day Paige had avoided her, refusing to back down and therefore extending a training schedule Emily knew the Sharks couldn't maintain. She was shocked to see how much the Commander had changed in such a short time.

Paige had dark circles under her eyes, so bruised that she looked as though she'd been hit. Her lean frame seemed even more spare, like a spool of wire being thinned to threadlike strands- still strong, but brittle. She had pulled the zipper of her flightsuit down, just enough to show her neck was damp with sweat, her sharp collarbones glistening. Paige untangled herself from Lucas, giving him a pat on the back and pushing him towards the bar before she pulled her hair out of its braid, shaking it out, a wave of damp auburn.

She ran her fingers through the knots of it, and then her eyes caught Emily's. It was like watching someone throw gasoline on a fire that had nearly gone out- everything in Paige's posture changed, the loose exhaustion of her limbs tightening, her fists clenching, eyes burning. Emily knew instinctually, with the old reflexes of a pilot, that she had invaded a sanctum, and any glimpse of vulnerability Paige would show here would be bitterly resented.

Emily's eyes flicked to the other pilots- to the slump of their shoulders at the bar, to Lucas barely standing- and back to Paige's false strength. Emily's own anger flared.

"I'd like to speak to you alone, Commander." She said, breaking the silence of the room.

Paige glanced around the canteen, the other pilots giving her quizzical looks, "In your office?"

"Here's fine," Emily stated, leaving no ambiguity about the order.

The canteen's other occupants shifted uncomfortably.

"That's our cue!" Hanna grabbed Lucas' arm, dragging the still shaky pilot behind her.

Noel met Paige's eyes and she gave him a brief nod. With a sound of disgust he slammed his untouched drink onto the bar, stalking out of the canteen. Nate knocked back his drink, still leaning against the bar, casual as a leopard. He stared stonily at the Captain. Emily met his gaze, feeling the tension mount in her as her body recognized danger.

"Pilot-" Paige warned, and Nate's attention snapped to the Commander. Emily took a step forward, even more on edge as the danger shifted to Paige.

Paige stared down her pilot, her eyes a warning and a threat. Nate shook his head, breaking the eye contact, poured another drink in his glass and sauntered out. Emily felt some of the tension in her own body leaving with the angry pilot.

"The floor is yours, Captain, if you're through antagonizing my squadron," the Commander said, arms crossed around herself, flightsuit stretched tight across the lean muscles of her arms, "It's almost like you're _trying._"

"Exactly how are you running this squadron? Those pilots look like they were about to fall down on their feet." Emily said with barely controlled anger.

Paige's eyes narrowed, words practically spat, "The Sharks are operating under orders. Our schedule has been dictated to us."

"And you could have stopped that at any time."

"By caving in?" Paige scoffed.

"By being a good _Commander."_ Emily snapped back.

Paige laughed, "If I had come to you, asked you to let us off the hook- all apologies and salutes- what would my squadron have thought of me? I should thank you. At least you gave them something to unite against."

Emily kept her cool, tipping her head back slightly, "You've made it clear I was the enemy before I stepped on this ship. I want to know why." Paige looked away as Emily continued. "Is it because I'm not Fulton? Or is it something else?" Emily crossed her arms, careful to keep her Augment on display. Paige's eyes flicked down to the Captain's arm and then away. Paige sighed, shifting to sit on a stool at the bar.

Paige slid Kahn's glass to herself, downing it's contents. Emily saw just the hint of a grimace as she swallowed the liquor.

"Still can't get used to Martian scotch," she explained.

Emily tapped her foot impatiently.

"Care for a drink, Captain? Might take the edge off…all that." Paige said, gesturing vaguely to the area around Emily, as if she was projecting her annoyance several feet around her.

"I don't drink," Emily replied.

The Commander grinned, "All pilots drink."

Emily shook her head, "I'm not a pilot anymore." During her career in an Assaulter Emily had possessed an alcohol tolerance higher than most- nothing masked fear so well or projected bravery better than a drink. Nearly dying had a way of discouraging losing any more clear headed moments.

Paige kept her grin, but it turned down at the edge, like the pilot was too tired for the facade. She laughed, and sighed, "Lucky you." The Commander unzipped the pocket of her flight suit on her upper arm, pulling out a thin metal tin and popping it open, dry swallowing one of the pills inside. Originally devised to combat biological warfare, ToxiClean was an alcoholic's blessing and an on-duty pilot's necessity- one pill would clear out any toxins from the bloodstream within a minute. At least Emily would be having this conversation with a sober Commander.

"I don't care about your Augment," Paige said, staring at the bottom of her glass.

"Are you sure about that?" Emily replied, coming to sit beside the Commander, resting her arms on the bar.

Paige gritted her teeth, as if just the nearness of the Captain was stressing her frayed nerves. Emily continued softly.

"I'm trying to understand-"

"Stop!" Paige exploded, her fingers too tight around the glass. Emily froze, feeling like she'd armed a mine. Paige looked away, like she was embarrassed by her outburst, a hand held hard against her temple, "Just stop."

"There's nothing to understand," Paige continued, quiet and terse, "It's a complication that I-" Paige stumbled on her words, "that the Sharks don't need."

"I have a squadron to keep together. To keep flying. To keep alive." Paige went on, voice stronger, angrier, but her eyes dark with stress and exhaustion.

"That's all I need for you to understand." Paige's eyes met hers, something between a challenge and a plea in her face. She looked like an animal at the back of a cage, all teeth and terror. Emily didn't know what that made her feel.

"The Sharks are officially off duty until we reach the non-com line," Emily said softly, as careful as she'd be around an injured animal, "The training schedule will be left to your discretion."

"Heard," Paige quietly acknowledged, her eyes slunk away from Emily's as she stood, sliding her glass to the end of the bar and continuing to avoid Emily's eyes. The Commander turned her back, heading for the door when Emily's sharp words halted her.

"You are not dismissed, Commander."

Paige stopped and Emily could see the fight return to her in the angular shift of shoulder blades, the fluid movement of the muscles in her back through her flightsuit.

"The squadron can feel however they need to about me- what matters is the Shark's loyalty to you is unquestionable. But _your_ loyalty needs to to lie with me."

Emily knew she was pressing her advantage, that Paige was tired and angry enough to snap, that some pilots were guns with full chambers, but she couldn't stop herself. The fight with Paige hadn't ended with her pressed against the wall of the canteen- it was still something that pulled between them, tied and tangled, and Emily wanted her hands on every line and knot that bound herself to Paige.

Emily watched the shift of Paige's body beneath her flightsuit and her hands twitched with the desire to claw down that back, to tear through suit and skin, to see red. To break and then mend.

Emily stood and crossed to her Commander, standing behind her as Paige refused to turn around. Emily put a hand on her shoulder, feeling like she'd reached out to stroke a tiger, Paige practically crackled under her hand. Paige was as temperamental as the ship she flew, and Emily hadn't thought she'd ever feel that riotous danger and joy beneath her fingers outside of an Assaulter again.

Paige didn't shake off her hand, didn't turn.

"Then don't let me down." Paige said, finally breaking their contact and striding out of the canteen.

Emily sighed and and leaned against the bar, exhausted as if she and the Commander had been in a ring. Hanna knocked gently on the busted canteen door.

"All done?" She asked warily.

Emily nodded.

"I wasn't listening in-" Hanna began, and Emily scoffed, "but you _might _want to ease up on the Commander." Hanna suggested.

Emily resisted the urge to roll her eyes, "And why is that?"

"When the Sharks are unhappy, ship morale tends to go in the toilet," Hanna replied.

"Are they really that moody?"

Hanna shrugged, "They're heroes. No one likes to see the heroes depressed. It makes everyone nervous."

Emily frowned, uncomfortable with how similar Hanna's assessment was to Fulton's. The encounter with Paige had exhausted her, she needed time to shake it off.

"Officer Marin, thank you for the tour. I'm afraid I have other duties to attend to now."

"Wait, there's still the, uh-" Hanna's eyes skittered across the empty hall, trying to find some purchase, "maintenance...closet?" she finished lamely, pointing towards a door missing half it's lettering and certainly having nothing more interesting in it than batteries and broken floor bots.

Emily raised a weary eyebrow, "Are you trying to distract me, Officer?"

"No, no," Hanna tried to wave away her suspicions, her eyes skating away from Emily's gaze, "it's just...I think we'll be getting some bad news soon."

Emily's body snapped to alertness, all fatigue forgotten as a wave of nervous premonition made her spine tingle.

Hanna sighed, running well manicured fingers through her hair, "I may have some...contacts...close to the Allied Galactic Council. There's been a lot of unhappiness about your appointment."

Emily nodded- turn on any Homeworld news holo and the Hollis was all over it.

"They're standing by you, but some of the more conservative voices in the Council think you should keep out of the spotlight for awhile."

"Where?" Emily asked, teeth already grinding at what she knew was coming.

"Patrolling the non-com line. Between Arcturus IV and Cerberus," Hanna replied quietly.

Emily's heart sank.

"You should receive the assignment next week," Hanna said, her voice tentative, knowing she was relaying the information that the Hollis had essentially been benched.

Emily's shoulders dropped. She felt beaten before she'd even started to play the game.

"Thank you Officer Marin. You are dismissed to see to your duties. Next time you have pertinent information about this ship's status, please avoid the delay tactics." Emily turned to leave.

"Captain, wait!" Marin exclaimed, grabbing hold of Emily's arm as she turned. She quickly let Emily go, whether through fear of her Augment or her authority Emily didn't know.

"I'm sorry. I wanted to show you the Hollis- the real Hollis- and the crew. I wanted you to know who we were so you would fight for us. So you would know there are people who will fight for you."

Emily sighed. Hanna was right- she already loved the Hollis. She'd loved it the instant she'd seen it floating in space, the miracle of her new life. But the Hollis and her crew were nothing without the mission, the fight, the purpose that kept them all flying.

They were a part of a whole. Emily wouldn't let anyone drag down the Hollis, not because of her. It was Spencer's last chance, Hanna and Caleb's connection, home for so many crew members and eight angry Sharks with a Commander who would never forgive her for giving in.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Hello all! So super psyched to post another chapter of this! Thank you so much for your continued reviews- you guys are the best, truly. Special thanks to the guest reviewer who "dared" me to update. I am apparently a child who responds super well to dares.**

* * *

Captain Fulton had a soft spot for Assaulter pilots. She'd been in love with their heroics as a child, had spent whole nights under the covers watching every episode of _Commander Razak's Assaulters_ on repeat, and she'd collected all their holo-cards. She remained stubbornly jealous of them once she was fast-tracked for a position at the Academy, covetous of their easy grace and their informal camaraderie, so different from the endless mandates of the Academy and it's stodgy structure. During her early years of command she had been entranced with how brightly they shone, and saddened by how quickly they burned out. She'd loved her fair share of Assaulter pilots- they were easy with their affection, if not their hearts- but she had watched too many of them die, or break, or fade; a revolving door of flashing grins and cocky charm that would disappear forever, but that she could not forget. When she had finally taken command of the Hollis she wanted her squadron to be different- she wanted to keep them alive.

Paige had been a rookie pilot when she'd been assigned to Fulton's Cruiser, and the reckless girl had caught the Captain's eye immediately. Twenty years ago Paige would have been the type that Fulton fell for, and then presided over the funeral service for. Fulton had watched Paige fly- dangerous and brilliant and like she didn't feel the tug of that leash that pulled most people away from the brink, that kept them clinging to life. Paige flew so close to the edge it was like she wanted something from the chasm to reach out and pull her down with it. The Captain knew the only way to keep Paige from throwing herself headlong into a heroic and wasteful death would be shackling her to life- convincing the young pilot's overdeveloped sense of duty that she was responsible for something other than herself. She knew Paige had hated her promotion to team leader. When the Shark's Commander was killed, Fulton and Paige had fought half the night in the Captain's office when she had informed the pilot she would be promoted to the position. Paige had resisted and pulled against it but Fulton had insisted on tying her to people- to friends and crew and to her squadron. Paige flew differently now, and Fulton thought of that as a success.

Emily Fields was her other project. And currently that project was sending her an urgent holo request.

* * *

Emily took several steadying breaths, trying to compose herself before her holo conference with the former Captain of the Hollis. Part of her was loathe to reveal any difficulties she was having with her command so early in their tour, but Emily desperately needed her mentor's advice.

Fulton answered her holo request, a large display hovering over Emily's office desk, almost giving the illusion that the retired Captain was sitting across from her, hands folded together, as she always used to be.

"Hello, Captain Fields." Fulton greeted, and Emily smiled. The title still felt strange coming from Fulton.

"How have you been enjoying retirement?" Emily asked.

"Exhausting," Fulton grimaced, "My grandchildren seem to think I have too much time on my hands- they've been signing me up for classes. Everything from Hydro-Golf to Saturnian cooking," the former officer scoffed.

Emily laughed, but the effort felt tight in her chest. The older woman cocked her head to the side.

"I assume this wasn't a social call," Fulton said, "What's troubling you, Emily?"

Emily sighed. "We'll be receiving our assignment shortly," Emily paused and Fulton waited patiently for her to continue, "Apparently the Council thinks guard duty is an effective use of a Cruiser."

Fulton leaned back in her chair. She didn't look surprised and Emily felt something heavy settle in her stomach, something that felt like betrayal.

"You knew about this," the young Captain accused.

Fulton shook her head, "No. But I suspected something like it."

"And you didn't think to tell me?" Emily said, struggling to keep her voice from pitching louder.

The retired Captain's face went hard, her voice low- an expression Emily had only seen directed at her a few times when her mentor decided she needed a harsh dressing down.

"I shouldn't need to warn you, Emily- you should have known walking into this that you would have enemies. You may find the Technorganics are the least of your worries."

Emily felt like a cadet again- so focused on the enemy in front of her that she missed the combat instructor coming at her side, a lesson in subtlety that would bruise for weeks. Fulton seemed to soften slightly at her crestfallen successor.

"Don't forget you aren't flying alone- anything the Council decides to put you through the rest of the Hollis is pulling with you. You made a good choice for First Officer, you have several brilliant Civilian Advisors, Officer Marin's contacts will be invaluable," Fulton ticked off on her fingers, "And Paige is the most fiercely loyal Commander you will ever meet."

Fulton must have noticed the irritation that flashed across Emily's face before she could school it into a neutral expression. "Is the Commander giving you trouble?" She questioned.

"She acts like i'm giving _her _trouble." Emily grumbled.

Fulton laughed, "You probably are. Pilots are a stubborn bunch."

"Was I that bad when you met me?" Emily asked, running a hand through her hair.

Fulton shook her head, "No. You'd already lost the tough act by the time I convinced you to enroll in the Academy."

Emily remembered the day Captain Fulton had visited her in the Veteran's Hospital on Phobos, startling the still recovering pilot with an encyclopedic knowledge of Emily's time in an Assaulter, her aptitude tests, her family's military history, and an offer to continue her career. Emily's new arm had still been prickling with an electrical current she had not yet grown used to, her reformed ribs expanding in an unfamiliar way every time she breathed, the coursing lines and hexagons of blue on her skin startling her every time she caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of her eye. Mostly she avoided looking at them at all.

What Fulton had suggested to Emily as the ex-pilot struggled to rebuild her identity in that hospital bed had seemed impossible to her at first. That Emily could be something more than a pilot, that she could be something more than her Augment, that she could be something _at all_ after cratering her life's work felt insurmountable, but Fulton had visited her day after day, convincing Emily that her service was not over, her potential unspent. Fulton had been there every step of the way, with advice and encouragement during her time at the Academy and her posting as a First Officer. Emily regretted ever feeling like the former Captain could betray her- Fulton had only ever been her ally.

"As much of a pain in the ass as those pilots can be, you need them. Remember that this war is more than the front-lines. Ships win battles, Emily, and Captains win wars, but those pilots win hearts."

"I know. I'm not sure how they can win hearts if they never see combat duty," Emily replied, still vexed by the problem of the Hollis' appointment to a patrol mission. Fulton seemed unfazed by her pessimism.

"The Council will see your potential," Fulton assured her, "Make them need you, Captain Fields. You and your crew can do things no one else can. Make them see that."

Emily nodded slowly, her mind already working on the problem of convincing the Council to give them a different posting.

"And what about the Commander?" Emily queried.

Fulton locked her gaze with the new Captain's, "Make her need you too."

* * *

"A, you majestic space brain, please run a shower."

Paige sighed as the computer complied, a stream of steaming water soaking her hair and sliding down her back. She rested her forehead against the tile as the heat travelled through her, trying to remember the resting position of muscles that seemed permanently tensed.

The altercation with Captain Fields had shaken her. Paige had felt out of control and nothing scared her more than being unable to hold herself together, losing her trajectory, spinning out. She expected all her equipment to perform perfectly, and her body and mind were just another set of tools that should obey, but since Emily had arrived Paige seemed to be in a constant state of malfunction.

Paige had always been the kind to put her hand in the fire, not because she had to know what it would feel like, but because she already did know, and something about the push-back, the flash of pain, and the immediacy of her body's reaction in that moment, was addictive. Testing Emily felt like that.

It was a compulsion she couldn't afford to indulge in, but she didn't know how to stop it. Paige rolled her shoulders under the cascade of water, feeling her joints pop. She would just have to try harder. That was Paige's answer to most problems, and it hadn't failed her yet.

Paige stepped out of the shower, catching a glimpse of herself in the small steamed over mirror. The fog of heat blurring her body's image made her look softer than she was, less tense; a mirror world version of the pilot where she didn't have to hold herself like a time bomb. Water pooled at her feet as she wiped away the moisture and stared at her true self- that harder body that was trying so hard to push back the longing it was feeling, like there was some purpose it ached to find and fill.

Paige had just pulled a cable-knit shirt over her still damp skin and begun braiding her wet hair when her smartwatch buzzed with a holo request. The corners of Paige's mouth quirked down as she saw the name on the request. Shuffling on pants, the Commander crossed to the rarely used desk in the corner of her quarters, placing her smartwatch on the larger screen console before accepting the holo.

"Paige," Fulton greeted, coming into focus with a nod, "You look terrible."

Paige grinned, or tried her best to, "And you look stunning as always, Captain."

Fulton laughed and Paige missed the Hollis' old Captain- missed feeling like she knew the script. "Are you as complimentary to your _new _Captain?" Fulton asked, folding her hands together.

Paige twisted her fingers through her braid, grimacing.

"I take it you aren't." Fulton said, taking her silence as an answer. "War is a team sport, Paige."

"Don't tell me she went crying to coach," Paige muttered, rolling her eyes.

"That is your commanding officer, pilot, show some respect."

"Yes, Captain." Paige said, snapping to attention, forgetting that Fulton's presence was merely a holo.

"_Emily Fields_ is your Captain now, McCullers, and you will support her. You will be an exemplary officer, and if I hear anything otherwise, so help me I will fly out to the front lines myself to put you on PT."

"Yes, Ma'am." Paige hung her head.

Fulton sighed in exasperation, leaning back in her chair, "Now what the hell is going on with you, Commander?"

Paige shook her head, "I'm not sure."

The former Captain raised her eyebrow, "I leave for five minutes and you're already having a crisis."

"What can I say, ma'am, you held us together." Paige shrugged, attempting the faded grin again with even less convincing results.

Paige could see the pity in Fulton's look, and she hated it. The Commander knew she looked sad and tired- flying very close to pathetic- and she didn't know how to pull it together.

"_You_ held yourself together, Commander. That's your problem. Try letting the Captain do her job sometime."

"Heard," Paige replied with a sigh.

Fulton nodded and cut the holo feed, leaving Paige to drop her head back with a groan, running fingers across her freshly throbbing temples.

* * *

"Did you have a chance to look at the presentation I put together?" Spencer asked. Emily thought her First Officer's eyes looked a manageable level of manic today.

"I did," Emily replied, not quite sure how to break the news of their lackluster posting when Spencer had put together an 85 page interactive report on the most likely tactical placements of the Hollis at Emily's request.

"Well?" Spencer prodded, tenacious and eager to plot, "I think the most likely option is the Gemini Station, but it's possible they'd want to give us a softer start on Romeseus."

"Spencer, I think we should discuss this later-" Emily started, standing up from her Captain's chair and hoping her cramped legs would still let her escape from her First Officer.

"Captain," a voice interrupted them.

Emily turned to see Commander McCullers striding into the Control Room, immaculate in a crisp blue officer's uniform, boots shined, and cuffs starched. She stopped several paces behind Emily's chair and gave a crisp salute. The pilot's auburn hair was twisted into complicated braids and tucked back in a bun. Emily wondered how her fingers would feel snarled in their knots.

Paige cleared her throat and Emily remembered herself enough to return the Commander's salute, Paige squaring her stance and putting her hands at ease behind her back.

"Adjust your uniform, pilot." Spencer said, eyebrow up at this model soldier performance. Paige looked puzzled until Spencer tapped at her own collar, clasped tightly at her throat.

Emily could see the flash of annoyance in Paige's eyes that she turned into a smile, reaching up to button the collar of her uniform, fingers grazing the gleaming gold Commander's starburst along its side.

"Commander," Emily began, shaking her hair back, "is there something I can help you with?"

"I was hoping to speak with you." Paige replied, voice quieter than usual.

Spencer rolled her eyes, "So speak."

Paige glared and shifted on her feet. Emily didn't need to see her First Officer and Commander at each other's throats.

"Officer Hastings, would you mind going over our course with the Navigator- I want to make sure we're on the most efficient route," Emily ordered, feeling a slight twinge of guilt for the hapless Navigator whose calculations were going to be triple-checked with extreme scrutiny.

"Heard, Captain," Spencer narrowed her eyes at Paige before stalking off.

Emily gestured for Paige to join her nearer the view window, their backs to the rest of the Control Room and their eyes to the stars. It seemed safest to be staring out into space rather than at each other- all their problems seemed to start there, some turbulent magnetism that made them clash, clawing to get somewhere. They stood in silence, Emily forcing herself not to shift impatiently, taking swift glances at the pilot by her side. Paige was a nervous stillness beside her, and her expression looked sad and resigned. The Commander finally sighed, her head dropping.

"I owe you an apology," Paige said, eyes to the ground.

Emily turned to face her Commander, taking a step nearer. "I owe you one as well," she replied.

Paige smirked, flicking her eyes up to Emily's for a fraction of a moment, "Can we both avoid the embarrassment and call it even, then?"

Emily shook her head, "I don't think so."

Paige stood straighter, squaring her shoulders. She looked like she was forcing herself to face the challenge head on. "Alright," she began, "I apologize, Captain. I was-" Paige's eyes narrowed as she searched for the right word, "kind of an asshole."

Emily cocked her head to the side, "Will it be happening again?"

"Absolutely," Paige grinned, some of the wolfish charm back in the angle of her smile. "You'll get used to it."

Emily arched an eyebrow, "I don't think I will."

Paige laughed, although she looked unsure if she should be. Emily hadn't been joking.

"I'm sorry as well, Commander," Emily said, "The Sharks belong to you. I trust your judgment with them."

The relationship between Captain and Commander was a tense one on any vessel. Though not equals, Commanders were given special privileges and leeway when it came to dealing with their squadron. Lacking the polished discipline the Academy instilled, orders to a Commander were best framed as 'discussions' rather than ultimatums. Emily had misstepped with Paige- the twitching desire to put the pilot in her place making her rash and incautious at the start of their relationship.

Paige smiled again, pulling absently at her tight collar. Emily had reached out and flicked open the button at Paige's throat before she could stop herself. Paige's head yanked back as if she'd been burned, the tingle of the pilot's skin on the tips of Emily's fingers making her whole hand go numb. The Captain dropped her hand back to her side.

"I'm glad we talked," Emily said after a moment. She felt like they should seal the conversation somehow, as if they should shake hands, but she was wary of touching the Commander again. Paige looked similarly lost, shifting from foot to foot, bright boots squeaking.

"Captain!" Hanna yelled, skidding into the control room, "A, bring up the holo-feed!"

The shipboard computer brought up the holo overlay across the view screen, masking the outer stars and blackness with an image of fire and rubble. Both the Captain and the Commander jumped backwards from the screen, startled by the sudden images of destruction sweeping across the window.

"What is this?" Paige said, taking another unsteady step backwards to take in the full picture.

"There's been an attack," Hanna gasped. "On Earth Prime."

* * *

The park was nearly unrecognizable. Not because Paige couldn't pick out familiar landmarks amongst the blasted foliage, the cracked and smoke stained marble, but because the spirit of the place was so violated it looked nothing like the park from her childhood.

The blast seemed to radiate out from The Centauri Expedition Fountain, it's water flowing a shimmering lavender from the algae discovered on asteroids orbiting its namesake. The carefully calculated circumferences that made up the interlocking circles of the fountain were fractured, bleeding burning and oily water.

Her mother had let her bring the tiny RC hovership she'd received for her birthday to fly in the fountain, the simple toy never quite keeping up with the maneuvers of her fingers across the controller.

The park had been a palette of lush greens and vivid tropical colors, courtesy of the climate controlled environment. The flora was broken only by the outcroppings of soft white marble plinths, each bearing the name of a serviceperson aboard the first ill-fated but horizon expanding trip past the Sol system. Her mother's great-great grandfather had been a science assistant on that ship and Paige and her mother often ate their lunch in the grass beneath the shadow of his memorial.

Her mother would take her on weekends, evenings after school, on holidays. It was the only place in the overdeveloped Homeworld capital that Paige could run in a straight line until her legs gave out without hitting a wall. Paige had the unexamined intuition of a child to realize that her mother also felt constrained by the city; that she breathed and smiled easier with her sandals off in the grass and Paige running circles around her. Her father would join them occasionally, but his presence made Paige self-conscious; her incautious run turned into a measured trot, her usually kicked off shoes kept so tightly laced she could feel her toes purple. Her father didn't seem to mind spending time in the park, but he _appreciated _things, he _admired _them- he did not _enjoy _them. He could be impressed but he did not marvel, and because of that some of the magic was leached away from the park while he was there.

When Paige had been sick her mother had filled her hospital room with flowers she had picked at the park. Paige had never cared for flowers, but the smell of them covered over some of the antiseptic coldness in the room she spent so much time in. When her mother had died Paige had placed flowers from the park on her casket. She hadn't been back since.

And now she never would.

The park was pitted with craters, fissures of fire striping across the clean lawns, white stone tumbled everywhere. And there were bodies.

The park was for civilians, for families, for the young and the old and the in love. There were so many bodies.

* * *

Emily felt frozen. She didn't know what there was left to do- there was no one to save, no one to protect, no enemy yet to fight. Just a screen full of death so far away from her and so close to home.

"Allied Galactic is requesting all Cruisers enter combat alert." Hanna said, scrolling through a holo of incoming orders on her smartwatch, eyes darting up to the screen every few moments, as if she couldn't stop herself from staring at the destruction.

Paige looked like she might hit the floor any moment, her eyes tracking feverishly across the screen. "Why?" she gritted, "There's nothing we can do."

Hanna drew in a shuddering breath. "They aren't sure if this is an isolated incident."

Immediately Paige's purpose seemed to return to her, like watching color restored to a faded photograph.

"I'll scramble the Sharks," She tossed over her shoulder, already on the move.

Emily grabbed Paige, gripping the pilot's arm just below the elbow, halting her momentum.

"We're not in range of any targets if there is an attack," Emily explained, "And I'm not sending you out there without more intel."

For a moment Emily was sure Paige would fight her as the pilot's eyes flicked momentarily to the screen before they locked back with Emily's gaze. The stared each other down before the Commander nodded, clenching her own fingers around Emily's forearm. Emily kept her grip on Paige as she tapped the controls on the inset of her Captain's chair, bringing up shipwide communications. Spencer stormed back into the Control Room just as Emily began her address.

"All personnel, this is Captain Fields. There has been an attack on a Homeworld planet. The Hollis is now entering a state of High Alert. Report to your combat stations. Engineering is to bring all shields to maximum and Navigation will begin plotting a warp vector to Earth Prime should we receive an order to assist. All personnel are to check-in with A and all non-essential duties are to be halted," Emily paused, and Paige squeezed her arm, "We are here to serve. We are here to protect our homeworlds. We are strong together and we will not let this stop us."

Spencer gave a brief nod towards Emily, already moving to her command station and opening up a system of holos to coordinate the Alert and make sure the ship's personnel were moving in sync. Paige sent a message to Shana, letting the Sharks know to remain on standby, ready to fly if the order came. She kept her grip on Emily's arm the entire time.

"Earth Prime Department of Defense just received this- it hasn't been released and it's not vetted, but my contact says it looks real." Hanna said breathlessly.

"How did you get that, Officer?" Spencer demanded.

"What does it matter!" Paige snapped.

"It doesn't," Emily replied coolly, "put it on."

Hanna nodded, tapping her smartwatch with shaky fingers as her holo replaced the footage of the bombing on the viewing screen.

A young, dark haired man stared out of the holo. He was dressed casually and sitting in a non-descript room. Emily ignored these details- the Defense Department and the HIDC would be scouring the holo for information and they'd do a better job than she could. It wasn't hard to focus her attention on the man at the foreground- he was Augmented, conspicuously and with an alien and disconcerting beauty. His eyes glowed- the irises a rich azure with pulsing sky blue pupils, the whites criss-crossed with the tell-tale circuit lines and diamonds of Augmentation. The geometric pattern bled out an inch from his eye sockets, just barely connecting over the bridge of his nose, giving him the appearance of wearing a delicate wire masquerade mask.

"My name is Garrett Reynolds," he began, voice low and even, "it is the 15th of August and today the Sacrificials will be executing a strike on a Homeworld target for the glory of the Technorganics."

There was a collective sharp intake of breath, and Emily felt Paige's fingers release their grip on her, wrenching her own arm out of Emily's hold as the pilot took a stumbling step towards the holo.

Reynolds' eery blue eyes never blinked as he stared out of the holo, "Humanity is a failed race. The Augmented are the next step in our evolution, and our glorious forbears the Technorganics will usher in a new age."

Emily clenched her fists, the blue lines streaking across her left arm flashing at the pain of her fingernails digging into her palm.

"The Augmented will inherit this earth, and every earth," Reynold said in his even monotone, "We will spread, and you will die."


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: wow this took a long time.**

* * *

Senator McCullers straightened his tie for the eighth time, tightening the knot at his throat until the discomfort made him feel distinguished. It was a nervous tick he unknowingly shared with his daughter, who fussed with the zipper of her flightsuit before every mission. Nick McCullers tried not to think about his daughter.

"Two minutes, Senator," his comp-aid spoke in his earchip.

Nick nodded to himself, clearing his throat and taking a sip of water before the holo recorder switched on.

"My fellow Homeworlders," he began, voice strong as he pictured the billions of people across the Sol system watching him, "We are here today to honor the dead."

Nick indulged in a heavy pause. The Senator's eye twitched slightly as his speech scrolled forward on his smart contacts. Nick didn't care for the invasiveness, but smart contacts polled better than smart glass- his constituents liked to see the sincerity in his eyes.

"To honor the dead," he repeated, "And to make a collective promise that a tragedy like this will never happen again. Those we have entrusted our lives to have failed us. The lives of the 112 people killed in the attack on the Centauri Expedition Memorial lie squarely at the feet of our Department of Defense."

Nick squared his shoulders and held his head high, knowing the holo of Garett Reynold's would be playing soundlessly behind him, wanting to strike a powerful counterpoint to the madman behind the violence.

"Since the attack new information has come to light- information the defense department would no doubt have preferred to suppress. This was an attack carried out not by the enemies we have spent nearly a decade fighting, but by a group much closer to home."

In the blasted remains of the fountain they had found traces of the perpetrator- burned and ground to dust but still identifiable. The bomber was identified as Cyrus, a 28 year old Augmented male- a grifter and a low life who had all but disappeared 6 months ago. How he had bypassed the memorial's security with what was estimated as a kilo of napalm-6 was still a mystery.

"In the wake of the Defense Department's gross failure to protect Homeworld citizens, the HIDC will be launching a special investigation and I urge all my fellow Homeworlders to aid and comply with their requests. If you see something, do something," Nick urged, pressing his palms together for emphasis, "It can be the everyday, ordinary heroism that stops terror plots, and we cannot afford more lost lives."

The Senator paused again, a hint of weariness and regret seeping into his tone.

"I have warned about the dangers of widespread Augmentation before- about the divisiveness it causes, the danger, and I could not be more unhappy to be proven right. It's time to finally call this social experiment what it is- not just a failure, but a disaster. A disaster that has cost 112 lives.

Nick was careful to place emphasis on every word, knowing this was the speech's home stretch- the sound-bite for the news cycle.

"The memorial park that was destroyed in this vicious attack was a tribute to humanity's reach into the stars- and at no time has it been more apparent than now that it is our shared humanity that binds us. A humanity that can apparently be lost. This was not just a vicious attack- it was an inhuman one. It is incomprehensible because this group, these so-called Sacrificials, are not human. Their hatred of humanity and their call for our extinction can only confirm this."

Worlds away his daughter's chest tightened as her father's eyes seemed to focus straight at her from out of the holo.

"We will find who did this, and we will find those like him. We will uproot them until we find the source of this disease and incinerate its heart," Nicholas McCuller's eyes flashed with a religious rage, "And we will not stop until there is justice!"

* * *

Emily's eyes scanned across her assembled Senior Officers and Civilian Advisors. Few of those lining the long conference table met her gaze, and no one looked particularly enthused about the plan she had spent a week arguing the Allied Galactic Council into.

"People are dying," she reminded them, trying not to let her frustration show, "The Orosion government can't or won't protect it's citizens and attacks against Augmented humans are occurring daily. We need to give these people an option for safety."

In the wake of the attack on the Centauri Expedition Memorial and the leak of Garrett Reynold's holo to the media, there had been a rash of violent outbreaks targeting Augmented citizens. A week later sabotage and an explosion aboard the Rosewood had destroyed the ship, killing half it's crew and several key Unified Senate members. Reynolds had sent another holo claiming responsibility and riots had broken out. Hundreds of Augmented deaths had been confirmed across the Homeworld planets.

Emily had been afraid, and then angry at her own fear- she could protect herself, she was trained, she was an Allied Galactic _Captain- _so why did she feel this slinking fear down her back, why did the images of Augmented humans dragged into the streets make her want to cringe in a corner instead of charge into battle? Her proposal to the Council had come to her in a burst of frustrated shame, and a desire to do anything to slough off that cowardly skin.

Emily had chosen Oros as their first target based on the particularly high Augmented population; a number it owed to the extensive military and civilian labs based on the planet. The first analysis and implementation of Augmentation had begun on Oros, a breakthrough grounded in years of research on the Technorganic larva discovered half a galaxy and a war away and brought back for study. There had always been tension between the pro-Augment groups and the rest of the population, but the division and violence between the two demographics had reached catastrophic proportions in the last several weeks.

"Rounding people up during wartime has some bad precedents. What's going to stop it from turning into an internment camp?" Caleb asked, leaned back casually in his conference chair but tension still clear in the fingers he had been obsessively drumming against his knee.

"it's not ideal," Emily agreed with a nod, "And it's not a permanent solution- it can't be- the Ganymede Station isn't equipped for the long term housing of refugees. But it will be completely voluntary, and right now we just need to stop the killing."

Hanna grabbed Caleb's elbow, effectively stopping his maddening tic, "Augmented humans are being hunted," she said, "so is it really a good idea to put them all in one place? How would we keep them safe?"

It was a good question, and one that Emily wasn't sure Allied Galactic had the answer for- their forces were already spread too thin. While the Ganymede Station was relatively remote and secure on its own, if there were any more attacks credited to Augmented terrorism, who knew what lengths angry survivors might go to for reprisal?

"Private security," Mona cut in, "Vanderwaal Industries has the second largest privately owned security force in the galaxy. I'm sure our board can be convinced to put that to good use."

"Corporations are rarely so magnanimous," Spencer stated, eyes narrowed, "What's your angle?"

Mona turned sly eyes on Spencer, and Emily could see her First Officer very nearly flinch. The Captain didn't blame her- Vanderwaal had a way of looking at you as though she saw your weak points plotted across your skin- like she could dig in her fingernails and rend them open.

"The vitriol in the debate over whether Augmentation or implants are the future of medical customization is bad for business," Mona replied, "If we show we aren't the monsters, our market grows."

"And you don't mind helping out the _competition_?" Spencer asked.

The Science Officer smiled, "I've never seen Augmentation as the enemy. Augmentation isn't competition- it's bad science. The answer to bad science is better science," Mona turned her smile on Emily, "And that's where Vanderwaal Industries will succeed."

"You're acting like Augmentation is always a choice- like it's a business decision," the Shark's Commander growled, arms crossed defensively at the furthest end of the table, "It's not."

Paige had been quiet throughout Emily's proposal, a brooding presence that Emily wasn't sure how to read. Emily was frustrated with the Commander- a feeling she was swiftly growing accustomed to. They had been on the verge of building something with their apology; a tenuous alliance, a careful partnership, but when Garrett Reynold's and the Sacrificials had claimed responsibility for the attack and Paige had wrenched her arm out of Emily's grip, the fragile understanding between them had broken. Emily didn't have the time or the patience to focus on the temperamental Commander now- not when people were dying.

Emily pulled her attention away from Paige as Ezra Fitz nodded his agreement with the pilot, ticking off cases on his fingers, "Experimental Augmentation trials tend to be far more affordable options than implants. Minors are still subject to their guardian's choices for medical treatment. Degenerative problems are virtually a non-issue with self-repairing Augments. And unless there's a neural med-alert against it, Augmentation has worked wonders with immediately stabilizing patients in critical condition," Fitz finished, gesturing towards Emily as his final example.

"A lot of those people are stuck with it," Paige continued, "It's not really a choice if it's the only one you've got."

Fitz clasped his hands, a doctor's soft heart on display in his too wide eyes as he stared down the rest of the assembled officer's, "All of this discussion about business decisions and private protection is a little _clinical, _don't you think? What's happening right now has a chance of spiraling into full scale genocide."

Security Officer Wilden scoffed across from the doctor, "There's a war going on- we can't afford to have bleeding hearts about every scuffle that happens back in Homeworld space when there's a crisis at the front," Wilden's jaw set in frustration, "This isn't a military mission- we aren't a refugee shuttle service. So why us? Why the Hollis?"

"Because we have an Augmented Captain," Paige replied, "The only one in the fleet." The pilot was staring at Emily from the far end of the table with a look the Captain found inscrutable, "That's why it has to be us."

Fulton had assured Emily there were things only the Hollis could accomplish, and she had been right. This was something the Hollis had to do- something Emily had to do.

"You have your assignments," Emily said, ending the discussion, "you enlisted to protect the people back home," she met their eyes in turn, "That means all of them."

Spencer stood, giving the rest of the assembled officer's a nod, "Dismissed." The First Officer gave Emily a questioning look, but the Captain waved her away. They would have time to discuss strategy later.

"Commander," Emily said, as her advisors filed out of the conference room, "A word, please?"

Paige's eyes flicked towards the door with something like longing in them, but she nodded and stepped aside to join the Captain.

"I need your heart in this," Emily began.

Paige frowned, jaw tensing, "And what makes you think it's not?"

"I know you aren't the biggest supporter of Augmentation-"

"I'm not a monster, Captain," the Commander replied, shoulders rising, "No one deserves what's happening to these people."

"That's not what I was saying," Emily sighed.

"Then what _are_ you saying?"

Emily took a steadying breath, trying to explain herself and de-escelate the tension that always seemed to mount between them, "That your squadron takes their cues from you. They'll care because you care. And you should let yourself care."

Emily didn't share the commonly held assumption that distance and professional reserve made a soldier sharper. Investment in the mission made people catch things they would have missed otherwise, attachment made people bold, and intimacy bred courage. Emily wanted the Sharks to feel the weight of the people that would be relying on them. She wanted Paige to know she was relying on her.

Emily's brown eyes met Paige's own dark ones, searching for a common ground there. The Captain had expected animosity, or at most grudging assent, but Paige looked almost hurt, a glimpse of something vulnerable as her eyes glanced away.

"You don't have to worry about that," Paige said, addressing her feet. Her eyes came back to lock with the Captain's, all the fury Emily had anticipated before burning in them, "I care, Captain."

* * *

Paige poured herself a generous shot of whiskey, eyed the glass, and added a finger more. While she knew it wasn't a particularly good idea to get smashed before her present trial, she felt she'd earned the buzz just through the contemplation of what she was about to do.

Paige downed the drink with a grimace and sent the request. She was too keyed up to visit the canteen, and Caleb had officially banned her from the hangar since she hadn't left it for the past 72 hours. There was nothing left to do but wait.

45 minutes later she was startled out of a rolling and uneasy sleep by A alerting her that the request had been received and a holo conference would commence in three minutes. Paige felt a familiar twisting in her gut, and the migraine the whiskey had helped dull roared back behind her eyes. The Commander hurriedly brushed fingers through her hair, adept hands pulling it back in a simple braid as she watched a minute tick by. She slammed the whiskey bottle back into her desk drawer and shoved the tumbler to the far corner of her desk, out of range of a holo image. Deciding literally at the last minute that the sluggishness in her movements and thickness in her head was not how she wanted to face Nick McCullers after all, Paige popped a ToxiClean pill, dry swallowing it and feeling the last of the alcohol leave her system while the final few seconds ticked down. As the whiskey numbness dissipated, the pain drilling through her head intensified.

"You have five minutes," Nick McCullers told his daughter, almost before his form solidified in the holo. The image was grainier with the distance, the framerate prone to stutter and jump, but Paige thought her father still looked exactly as he had when she was eight years old. Certainly some of that was due to the elective surgeries that were par for the course for any politician, but Nick seemed to project an air of immutability that went deeper than skin. It was a quality that comforted his constituents and terrified his daughter. Especially when she was about to ask him to change his mind.

"Tick-tock, Paige, I have a press conference."

It was terrible to hate someone you loved- to feel so helpless to both emotions. Paige thought that must be something she and her father shared. It was the most she hoped for.

"You need to stop this fear campaign against the Augmented," she said, knowing her father would appreciate a direct approach to any hedging.

"When I start a _campaign_ you'll get a donation request from my office. These addresses are glorified PSAs," her father said with a snort.

"People are dying!" Paige growled, "The things you're saying are getting people killed!"

Nick McCullers kept his tone even, an eyebrow quirked as if he suspected his daughter of deliberately missing the point, "The people responsible for the violence are not the ones I'm addressing."

"Well, they're the ones listening."

"Paige, open discourse is never wrong."

"But _you're _wrong!" Paige snapped, slamming a fist on the desk, "The things you are saying are _wrong_!"

Nick McCullers drew in a deep breath, tapping his fingers against his desk. Paige knew he was counting to ten in his head. When he was finished he smoothed a hand through his hair, wedding band still glinting on his finger.

"Did an Augmented terror-cell admit to the bombing of the Centauri Expedition Park? Yes. Is the violence directed toward the general Augmented population regrettable? Yes."

Paige recognized the old speech patterns the Senator had perfected during his debates leading up to office. It was the same stilted structure he had used to chastise a young Paige for her frequent disappointments. The familiar tactic infuriated her.

"Does that misplaced violence mean there aren't still important legal and political ramifications that should affect Augmented individuals for the sake of our safety? No. Am I calling for killing in the streets? No! I am trying to create a _dialogue_."

"While you're _dialoguing_ people are dying. Innocent people," she spat.

"Paige, I don't have any more time for this discussion, and I don't appreciate your accusation that I'm some sort of," the Senator made a vague motion with his hands, as if he couldn't quite grasp whatever vision his daughter had of him, "hate monger."

Paige knew she was losing him, scrambled for something to keep him from cutting the feed.

"What about me?" Paige cut in, a breathless tumble of words she let fall before she could think better of them.

Nick McCullers narrowed his eyes. This was not a card they played, not an admissible move, not a thing to be spoken.

"This has nothing to do with you," her father replied, eyes like razor wire, "That's all the time I can spare this subject."

Nick McCullers cut the holo feed and Paige roared in anger, sweeping up the tumbler at the edge of her desk and hurling it at the wall, glass shattering where her father's image had been a moment ago.

* * *

Paige watched the five transport freighters move in a slow and steady line towards the waiting Hollis and the designated warp point. The ships were old- cobbled together and scarred from long use, somehow heavy even in the weightlessness of space, and Paige had a twinge of concern over their readiness for the strain of a warp. They had put the operation together quickly, and quietly, but First Officer Hastings and Caleb had inspected and declared the ships adequate for the flight, and Paige trusted Caleb's brilliance and the First Officer's seeming obsession for detail.

The Commander pulled down her thruster speed yet again to match the slow progress of the ships- the Sharks could have flown laps between the planet's atmosphere and the warp point a dozen times by now. The squadron was arrayed along the line of the freighters, and would stick closely to them until they reached the warp point. Anything too close to the ships when they entered warp would be subjected to residual waves- at close quarters powerful enough to destroy a small ship like an Assaulter. Warp waves also had a habit of setting atmosphere's on fire, making the freighter's interminable trek to a safe distance away from Oros necessary, if mind-numbing, for the Sharks.

"Commander," the Captain spoke in her ear,"be advised we're picking up movement exiting the atmosphere and heading towards your position."

Paige frowned, pulling up her own Nav HUD, the Orosion scan jammers making the indistinct figures approaching them impossible to read, "Does the Hollis have any make on them yet?"

"We're getting a reading now," the Captain replied, Paige anxiously cracking her neck as she waited for the response, "Eighteen ships," she reported, and Paige hissed through her teeth, "Two squadrons of S-4 Aggressors."

Aggressors were an Assaulter's slower, fatter cousin. They were for Assaulter pilot wash-outs- those who couldn't handle the eight engines and the risk, those who didn't have the temperament or the talent. What Aggressors _did_ have were shields and heavy weaponry. Paige hailed the dual squadrons as they came into view against the brown haze of Oros' atmosphere.

"This is Commander McCullers of the AGC - Hollis, identify yourself."

There was a brief delay before the response came through Paige's comlink.

"Commander, we've been assigned escort detail for the refugee ships."

Paige's fingers twitched on her thruster levers. Allied Galactic had only approved the Hollis' involvement in the mission, citing lack of resources. This was wrong.

"Negative- I've received no intel on an escort. Turn planetside, pilot."

There was another lag before the response came, "Not your call, Commander, we have our orders."

Paige gritted her teeth, targeting the squadron leader, "Stand down, pilot, or we will take your approach as an aggressive act."

A dark sphere rocketed past Paige on the left and the Commander's mouth went dry.

"Shit!" she yelled to her squadron, "EMP!"

Paige spun her Assaulter hard to the left, trying to catch a clear shot at the orb before it made it to the freighter, Sean's lasers crackling through the air as he too spotted the weapon and attempted to avert disaster. They were both too late.

The EMP locked onto the freighter's shield signature, exploding open with a thousand interconnected shards like a deadly electric net. The shield crackled, arcs of gold lightning shooting off in every direction as it short-circuited, and Paige's Assaulter narrowly missed being charred by a rogue flare.

Gold shards like superheated glass dissolved from around the ship, leaving the freighter completely unprotected, aged hull entirely exposed.

Paige tore her eyes away from the sight and towards the wave of missiles that were heading their way, her squadron scrambling to pick them off even as the Aggressors accelerated to engage them in close quarters.

"Sharks, defensive positions. Two man teams to a ship, I fly clean-up. Watch your backs, squad."

A few of the replies in her comlink were shaky- this was not the enemy they signed on to fight, but all eight Assaulters swung into their positions flanking the refugee ships.

Paige stayed tight to the defenseless freighter, keeping close to take out any missiles that made it past the rest of the Sharks, several of the projectiles already shrieking their way towards her.

Paige targeted the first missile and slammed her boots down, blue bolts colliding with the weapon and extinguishing each other in a crackling explosion. Paige swooped up and to the right, avoiding the worst of the debris to lock onto the next missile, taking it out a scant few meters from the freighter, the residual burn from its incineration searing a smooth shine onto a patch of the scarred freighter hull.

Paige skated close to the hull, scanning for the next target to make it through her squadron. She watched as Sydney's Assaulter engaged with an enemy Aggressor, the rival ship managing to fire off a missile before Sydney could shake its attention back to her with a barrage of blue bolts to it's port side. Paige took aim at the missile, tracking her targeting reticule in front of it carefully, just barely catching sight of the blue bolts arcing towards her out of her peripheral vision. Instinct saved her before any conscious decision, her body slamming to the left and her Assaulter juking out of the line of fire. Paige roared, pitching her Assaulter back into an upward spin to try to catch the missile again, ignoring the Aggressor behind her still spitting bolts of blue in her wake.

"Got your back, Commander!" Shana spoke in her ear, locking onto the Aggressor on Paige's tail. Paige barely heard her, the missile was so close-

Shana's fire managed to find its target and destroy the enemy on Paige's tail just as the missile made impact with the freighter, dual explosions rocking the Commander's ship between them in a storm of destruction.

Fire bloomed from the gash in the hull and then immediately folded in on itself, sweeping back into the freighter even as the ship's artificial atmosphere vented into space, the structure of the ship beginning to bend and twist under the pressure. There were over fifty people on that ship, and there was no hope for any of them.

The battle seemed to lull for a moment, defenders and aggressors alike held back as they watched the freighter implode. Paige struggled to push back the fury in her chest, the scream in her throat, and accelerated on a course to intercept the next attack.

* * *

"Deploy Sticky-Warps, Vanderwaal, get them covering those freighters!" Emily ordered, the Munitions Officer targeting the freighters on the viewscreen and firing a dozen of the drones almost before Emily finished speaking. The devices, equipped with their tiny warp drives, would circle the freighters and lock onto the specific heat and energy signature of a missile, a final line of defense should the Assaulter pilots fail to bring them down.

"Get me planetside defense!" Emily barked, and Hanna made the call, bringing up the holo on the viewscreen as soon as it went through.

A stocky man with jet black hair and bristling gray eyebrows came onscreen, blood red garnet of a general burning at his collar.

"Captain Fields," he said, voice like a saw, "This is General Grant. What business do you have with Orosian defense?"

"There are ships attacking your citizens- deploy countermeasures immediately!" Emily demanded, unable to keep the desperate urgency out of her voice.

"The individuals aboard those freighters are no longer the responsibility of the Orosion government. This is Allied Galactic's mess."

Emily gaped for a moment, stunned by the general's callous dismissal. The Captain squared her shoulders, planted her feet in a fighting stance, "Those Aggressors came from planetside- those _are_ your responsibility."

"And I disagree. Those ships are not engaged against any Orosion interests."

"And just who are those pilots?" Emily exploded, gesturing to the Aggressors trying to tear apart her squadron, "Someone planetside just happened to come across two squadrons of military grade ships?" She could see the twisted wreckage of the destroyed freighter in the viewscreen, right next to the holo of this indifferent military man, and it enraged her.

"I can see this is a bad time for you, Captain," the General rasped, folding gnarled hands, "I'll leave you to your firefight."

The holo terminated and Emily slammed her palm down onto the console, the stinging shock through her hand helping to focus her.

"Paige," she hailed the Commander, "have your squadron give a tally for the number of EMPs and missiles destroyed." Aggressors only carried a dozen missiles- less if they were carrying a payload of EMPs. Eventually they would have to resort to close range attacks.

"Once they're all accounted for, engage the Aggressors away from the freighters and the Hollis will lay down suppressive fire. Nothing will get near those ships."

Emily threw a glance to Spencer who caught her eyes and nodded, radioing the pilots of the freighters to stay in tight single formation to avoid being hit by the Hollis's weapons.

"Heard Captain," Paige responded, sounding breathless, "we'll do our best with the missiles 'til then."

* * *

"Stickies incoming, Sharks," Paige alerted her squadron, "Watch out for any warp waves they cast when activated. Focus on taking out those EMPs- let the stickies and the freighter shields soak up the missiles- they'll buy us some time."

Paige swooped beneath a cascade of enemy fire, pulling up hard beneath the enemy ship and strafing her attacker, the Aggressor's shields sparking gold, but holding. Shana dove from above, her lasers disintegrating the last of the shields and biting into the ship, the rain of fire tearing it apart.

"Pick a target and tag-team it- those shields need more than one pass!" Paige updated her squadron.

Paige swept behind Sean, tagging the Aggressor on her wingmate's tail, giving Sean the moment he needed to juke free. She kept after the enemy ship, slicing away at its defenses until the shield shattered, blue fire devouring the Aggressor.

The Commander took a moment to survey the battlefield- the Sharks were holding their own, and no other freighter had lost its shield, though a few were showing worrying gold fracture lines. Noel's team had set out to defend the tail end of the convoy, but the ace and his wingmate were engaged with several Aggressors far outside the line of defense. Lucas' ship was doggedly stationed by the freighter, attempting to repel the worst of the incoming fire.

"Blacktip, you're out too deep, get back to your freighter." Paige ordered, accelerating hard to give Lucas back-up, just as a trio of Aggressors fired a barrage of missiles at the freighter.

Lucas took down the first missile, his ship streaking through the burning debris in a halo of blue fire. The sticky-warp defending the freighter snapped onto the second incoming missile, warping both itself and its target to whatever location Vanderwall had specified for the weapon, the rippling warp waves it left behind buffeting the freighter. The ship's shields sparked as the waves impacted, but the warp was small enough to leave the freighter ultimately unharmed. Paige was grateful it was Vanderwaal running the calculations for the sticky-warps- it took a massive amount of concentration to constantly update the vectors for safe warp entrance and exit on a moving target, but Mona had levels of concentration to spare. Paige's headlong dash brought her in-range of the third missile just in time to send it out of commission, the explosion skittering gold across the freighter's shields.

The trio of Aggressors regrouped for a second pass, and Paige looped to engage them as they opened fire.

"Not this time, asshole," Paige snarled, corkscrewing upwards as her attacker's lasers failed to find her, strafing across the pack of them and weakening their shields. Lucas' follow up managed to take an Aggressor out; the explosion in the tight formation sending the other two ships reeling. The two Sharks came at the ship's from opposite sides, tearing through the rest of their shields. A moment before its destruction the lead Aggressor managed to fire off an EMP, the dark projectile a streaking metallic against the black matte of space.

Lucas' bolts connected a glancing hit to the EMP, bursting the orb open and sending its crackling net just wide of the the freighter's shields. As it fragmented, the net swept across the siding of Lucas' Assaulter, all four starboard engines immediately shorting at the contact, sending Lucas into a crazy spin.

"Cut your engines, Lucas!" Paige yelled to her rookie, sending bolts crackling across an Aggressor that had turned its sights on the vulnerable ship.

Noel's Assaulter joined Paige's attack, their combined firepower shredding through the shields and destroying the enemy ship in a blaze of blue.

"That was too close, Kahn." Paige breathed into her comlink.

"No such thing, Commander," Noel replied, the pilot already streaking towards his next target.

"You alright in there, Lucas?" Paige checked in.

"Affirmative, Commander," came the pilot's shaky reply, his ship charred on one side and floating limply, "Just have to wait for the core to reset."

"Hang tight, rookie," Paige replied, looping around to engage an Aggressor spitting blue across the freighter's sputtering shields, "Sean will stay on you."

"Heard," Lucas acknowledged, as Paige accelerated after her quarry.

* * *

Emily stumbled as a massive warp wave rocked the Hollis, grabbing the back of her Captain's chair to steady herself. As soon as she regained her balance the Captain turned her attention back to the view window, worry coursing through her as she surveyed what had just altered the playing field. Her blood ran cold when she saw the ship.

"Paige," She hailed the Commander, "New arrival. There's a Goliath class vessel heading our way."

It was a sluggish thing, curled and oblong like a pill bug with massive interlocking armor guards that would slide back to reveal rows of turrets and missile launchers. Goliath's were siege vessels; slow and short range, they possessed some of the thickest shields and armor in the fleet, and bristled with devastating weaponry. While the Hollis would be able to hold it's own against the vessel, or at the very least warp away, the freighters would be torn through instantly.

"The Goliath's ETA to firing range is three minutes," Spencer supplied, eyes glued to her console.

"That's not enough time for the freighters to make it to the warp point," Hanna said, staring out the view window, biting her lip. Emily tore her own eyes away from the Goliath, turning to watch the squadron of Sharks frantically streaming around the freighters.

"You have three minutes, Paige," Emily's fingers dug into her palms.

"Heard, Emily," Paige replied. Emily could hear the tension in her voice, hovering dangerously close to defeat. She wanted to reassure her pilot, but everything she could think of to say would have sounded like a lie. This was her Commander, and if words were all she had to give her, she should know what to say.

"Vanderwaal, turn all weapons on the Goliath," Emily ordered and Mona's fingers fairly danced across her console, and thudding blue bolts from the Hollis began to streak towards the smaller ship.

"We won't penetrate the shields in time," Spencer growled, eyes narrowed at the view window tracking the Goliath's vitals and the incremental shift in its defenses from the Hollis' attack.

"I know," Emily replied, teeth grinding.

"We won't be able to save the freighters. We can call back the squadron at least-" Spencer began.

"No!" Emily barked. _Not yet,_ she amended to herself.

The Captain paced in front of the view window, watching her squadron struggling in the maelstrom of fire and explosions, and the slowly approaching Goliath. For a wild moment Emily missed her Assaulter, wishing more than anything that she could at least be out there with the Sharks, with Paige, before the end. Emily shook her head- that was an old way of thinking, a pilot's way of thinking- she was a Captain now, and she still had tools.

"Officer Marin, hail planetside defense again."

Hanna glanced up at her with an incredulous look, but didn't question the command. A moment later the bristling General Grant came up on the viewscreen. He opened his mouth, but Emily cut him off.

"Turn planetside defense on the Goliath that has entered the system," the Captain demanded.

The General scowled, "For the last time, Captain Fields, the Orosian military will not be dragged into this!"

"Turn your guns on the Goliath," Emily repeated, voice steady and eyes cold, "or we turn our guns on you."

"What exactly are you threatening, Captain?"

"I will target every military base and installation on this side of the planet. I won't have long before the Goliath arrives and my squadron and the freighters are destroyed, but I'll have long enough."

"You are proposing a war crime, Captain!" Grant's mouth twisted in a snarl, "Every Allied Galactic ship in the system will be after your head!"

"One enemy at a time, General. I'll take my chances with Allied Galactic to save my people now."

Emily watched rage contort the man's face; anger mixed with impotence and spite making him ghoulish, "You've made a mistake here, Fields. I'll make sure you regret this."

"I wouldn't be much of a soldier if I couldn't live with regret," Emily replied, cutting the feed.

"ETA to the Goliath's firing range, two minutes," Spencer said, breaking the silence that had descended on the control room. "Nice bluff," she added.

Emily bit the inside of her mouth, "I'm not sure it was one."

There was nothing left to do but hope her threat had made an impact- that her desperation had read as aggressive instead of pitiable. The Captain clenched her teeth as she waited to see if Orosion defense would make a move.

Within the minute the weapon satellites orbiting Oros and stationed in the planet's atmosphere coalesced to their position, laser charges streaming towards the Goliath, pounding blue impacts against rippling gold shields. Between planetside defense and the Hollis' weapons, the Goliath's shield signature was shrinking fast, jagged patches already opening and sluggishly sealing in its gold shell.

Emily stared at the reading with a desperate intensity, willing the shield to break with every tense muscle of her body.

"The Goliath's stopped its approach," Spencer reported, her voice fighting disbelief, "they're shifting all shields forward."

Emily took a step towards the view window, terrified to blink, to break eye contact, as if any tiny shift might stop the miracle from happening.

"They're retreating," Spencer said, and there was an audible sigh from the members of the control room, a few strained laughs, someone clapping.

Emily didn't feel a true sense of relief until she watched the remaining Aggressors peel off from their attack, limping back towards Oros now that their reinforcements had been chased off.

She let out the breath she had been holding; she wouldn't lose anyone else today.

* * *

"Sharks, return to the Hollis. Warp commencing in two minutes." The Captain's voice in her comlink should have calmed her, just as the sight of the last freighter entering warp should have relieved her, but Paige still jittered with adrenaline.

"Shana, take point. Fall in, Sharks," the Commander ordered, taking a position at the back of the pack, hands still tingling with the rage of the fight, the fear of the ambush. For the first time since the attack began Paige had a moment to take stock of herself; to notice how each breath felt like it was being dredged from the bottom of a well, a shuddering exhaustion in each exhale, how her chest ached, her heart pulsing so fast she couldn't count the beats. Her eyes burned, the stars blurred.

When the last of her squadron had passed through the Hollis' shields in a wash of gold and settled into the hangar, and Paige had powered down her own Assaulter, the Commander hoped to feel some relief, but the constriction in her chest only increased, her air coming through gritted teeth, her hands pressed into fists against her sternum to keep the sound in. She was terrified to open her mouth- afraid of what might come out.

Paige stayed like that, curled as tightly into herself as the Assaulter would allow, trying to breath through the pain, eyes open to avoid seeing the flames and twisted metal that burned in her mind.

When Caleb knocked on her cockpit she ignored him. When he keyed in his Engineer's override to slide the smartglass back she shoved his hand away, all but snarling.

"Paige," he said, voice soft and movements slow, "It wasn't your fault."

Paige laughed, the sound fractured, like she was pouring out broken glass, "Then tell me whose fault it is, so I can fucking kill them."

* * *

"What the hell was that!" Paige roared, storming into the control room, "What the hell just happened out there!"

The Commander was a thing of tired fury, braid a shade darker from sweat and eyes wild. Emily would not have wanted to face this pilot in an Assaulter.

"Stand down, pilot!" Spencer barked, moving to intercept the Commander. Paige looked as though she would tear through the First Officer and Emily knew she would have to isolate the situation before someone ended up in the brig.

The Captain strode to where the two officers were glaring daggers at each other and grabbed Paige's wrist, dragging the Commander into the conference room. The pilot didn't fight her; apparently Paige didn't just want a fight, she wanted a fight with _Emily._

"How the _fuck _did they get the jump on us!" Paige exploded as soon as Emily had keyed the door closed. Paige was pacing a short and frantic line, as if it hurt too much to stand still. Emily had seen this, felt inklings of this, before. It was a pilot's exhaustion, and the pride that made them fly well, and the guilt that crushed them when they failed, mixing into a manic state that would head straight into a breakdown if Emily didn't put a stop to it.

"Paige," Emily said, gripping the pilot's arms, fighting for her attention, "_Paige_. We saved over two hundred people. The Hollis and the Sharks kept them safe. You kept them safe."

"We lost them! We lost those people," Paige struggled under her grasp and Emily tightened her hold, "We had them and then we _fucking _lost them."

"_Look _at me, pilot," Emily commanded, waiting until Paige's bleary brown eyes finally tracked to hers, "You did everything you could," Emily shook the pilot in her grip, "Everything."

Paige let out a choked sound and looked down. Emily felt an ache in her arms as she fought the urge to embrace the pilot.

"It's okay," she said instead; the words a shadow of the comfort she meant to give, "it's going to be okay."

Paige seemed to still and Emily moved to let go of the pilot's arms, but Paige grabbed the Captain's wrists, insisting on keeping them connected. Something about Paige's fingers against the pulse in Emily's wrist, about the fear that had been pulsing through her a moment before, about the urgent desire to press the pain out of the desperate pilot in front of her made the Captain's heart hurt. Emily took a step forward, just as Paige's head came up to press her lips against Emily's own.

At first it was everything she had not expected it to be, and Emily had only the briefest of moments to be surprised at herself for having an _expectation _of what kissing the pilot would be like_. _She had expected a fight, even in intimacy, but Paige was soft against her, and warm. Beyond her first insistence of their kiss, Paige was pliable; she didn't fight Emily's mouth against hers, the graze of tongue against her bottom lip, Emily's push inside her mouth. Paige kissed like it was her own surrender. Emily wanted every inch of that surrender.

Paige deepened the kiss with her urgency; her fingers reaching to curl in Emily's hair like need, her mouth open to Emily like desperation, closing the distance between them like a plea. Emily wanted to meet every demand, to pull Paige into every layer of safety and peace that kiss could provide.

She ran her fingers across Paige's jawline, felt the prickle of electricity as they slid down the pilot's neck, across the sharp line of the collarbone that she wanted between her teeth, and pressed her palm to Paige's chest, trying to trap the frightened beat into calm beneath her fingers.

Paige's breath hitched, and she pulled away, Emily releasing her grip on the pilot, her hands cold after the press of warm skin against them. Paige rubbed at the place on her chest Emily's hand had rested, as if she was scrubbing away the touch, erasing the Captain's presence there.

"Paige-" Emily began.

"Captain," Paige replied, her guarded tension returned, "I can't."


End file.
